Search Results for 'Paul Mannion'

The Galway hurlers will know better than anyone that they need to up the intensity and passion, and produce a better overall performance than last Sunday if they are to beat Dublin in O'Connor Park, Tullamore, on Saturday (4.45pm).

Roscommon and Galway served up an epic u-21 Connacht final last Saturday evening in Tuam Stadium

The World Cup has reached the quarter final stages, Wimbledon has almost reached its climax, yet the Provincial finals in the GAA championships have yet to yield their winners despite starting two months ago. When you think how fast these other tournaments are run off it makes you feel for the inter county players with the long drawn out season with gaps of up to six weeks between games. None of the big hitters has been eliminated in the football championship, and before you say what about Derry, they were never going to win the All-Ireland. One team I felt may be able to put it up to Dublin, physically anyway, was Monaghan. They are lucky to be still in the Ulster championship and they have no greater incentive to win their replay with Armagh than avoiding a replay against Tyrone in the qualifiers. Monaghan more than likely felt great about themselves after beating Tyrone, and clearly took their eye off the ball playing against Armagh, while probably looking ahead to an Ulster final repeat against Donegal without actually having qualified for it. They got the wake up call necessary and I am sure they will win the replay.

The Galway minor footballers paid the ultimate price for their profligacy in the first 20 minutes of the Connacht semi-final in Tuam Stadium on Saturday, crashing out of the championship by 3-7 to 1-12. This was a game Galway could have won - if they had been more ruthless and efficient in front of goal when they were in almost complete control. We counted at least three glorious goal chances Galway squandered when they were in great positions in that period. Michael Daly shot wide once when in a good position, while his clubmate Colm Mannion was called back for over-carrying when he should have laid the ball off to men who were free inside. Those two incidents stand out, but there was numerous other opportunities to raise a green flag or two.

The Galway minor footballers paid the ultimate price for their profligacy in the first 20 minutes of the Connacht semi-final in Tuam Stadium on Saturday, crashing out of the championship by 3-7 to 1-12.

It was never going to be an easy assignment for Enda Gilvarry's new batch of Mayo minors, opening their championship account against a well fancied Galway side in the home of Galway football in Tuam Stadium. John Donnellan's side came into the game on the back of having already had a championship game under their belt against Sligo last weekend and a growing reputation.

With the busy schedule of National League games and Kiltane’s and Castlebar’s run to All-Ireland club finals, I have had very few column inches to discuss the importance of ‘the club’ and how GAA clubs have been severely hit in the last number of years. Charlestown, like every other club in the county, have lost lots of players to emigration because of the downturn in the economy. The only exception to the rule may be Kiltane, who had 44 players togged out for a championship game last year. However Shane Lindsay was commuting from Scotland pretty much every week.

Following a defeat in last weekend's Allianz NFL Division One opener with Cork the stakes will be piled high for Westmeath at Cusack Park when All Ireland champions Dublin visit Cusack Park.

Now that 2013 has almost gone to the history books it is time to reflect on the year that nearly was. The Mayo senior team played their first game against Leitrim in the FBD league on January 13. Little did we know back then what the year was about to unfold. Mayo’s National League campaign was not of the consistent variety and after a convincing win at home to Kerry on February 3 we became expectant again. That was followed by four consecutive losses to Tyrone, Dublin, Down, and Kildare. The Tyrone game was a crushing defeat, Stephen O’Neill’s last gasp penalty winning for the red hand. Mayo were given a taste of Stephen Cluxton’s ability in the league game in Croke Park in March, the Dubs convincing winners; Bernard Brogan was unmarkable the same night. Worrying for Mayo were the losses to Down and Kildare, two games they should have won. Mayo were now in real danger of being relegated and had to beat All- Ireland Champions Donegal in Castlebar and then travel away to Cork to try to complete a miraculous escape. What was of great concern was the lack of goal chances and goals, Keith Higgins’ goal against Tyrone the only attempt to hit the net in five matches. Michael Conroy bettered that stat with a soccer-style finish against Donegal in a game in which Barry Moran was in superb form. Mayo well and truly ground out a result in Cork, winning by the slimmest of Margins 0-11 to 0-10 to achieve their goal of staying in division one of the league. It was a complete bonus that they sneaked into a league semi-final and had another big game in Croker against the Dubs. Confidence may not have been too high after Dublin easily won the league semi-final by 2-16 to 0-16. Bernard Brogan was untouchable in the first league encounter, Paul Mannion the star of the semi-final scoring 1-04. It really was amazing Mayo got to a league semi final despite losing four games on the spin while staring relegation in the face. Two goals in eight matches had to be a very worrying stat for James Horan and his management.

They battled together for Mayo during the 1990s and tasted defeat in All Ireland finals together, Kevin Cahill and John Casey were two of the major men in John Maughan’s first great Mayo team that reached two All Ireland finals in a row in 1996 and 1997, with Kevin missing out on the second final through injury. Earlier this week they met up with this writer to shoot the breeze about their own memories from those days, some fit to print, plenty of others that we were probably better off not printing, and to cast their eye over this year’s Mayo team and their former team-mate whose now the man in the manager’s T-shirt and what they hope to see in the final