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Congratulations to Ballintubber who clinched their third Moclair Cup in five years against last year’s county and Connacht champions, and their fiercest rivals Castlebar Mitchels. It is a marvellous achievement for a team that was playing intermediate football in 2007.

In sports management, it is often said that when a successful manager leaves a job, you want to be the guy, who follows the guy, who followed the successful guy. Because following in the immediate footsteps of someone who brought great success is a very tricky task to master. But when Pat Holmes decided that he was going to step away from the Castlebar Mitchels’ hot seat following their defeat in last March’s All Ireland final after guiding them to county and provincial glory for the first time in two decades, his two trusty lieutenants Shane Conway and Alan Nolan stepped up to fill gap and they have bought them back to the county final at the first time of asking.

There were 16 teams when it started out, but only four remain as the semi-finals of the Mayo GAA senior football championship are down for decision in Elverys MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon.

It was a hectic weekend of action in the Mayo GAA Senior Football Championship, with four quarter-finals and one relegation semi-final down for decision, along with a reply in the intermediate championship quarter-finals.

Elvery’s MacHale Park is the place to be this weekend, when the best eight senior club teams in the county do battle for a place in the semi-finals of this year’s club championship.

A hectic weekend of action is in store in the Mayo GAA Senior Football championship, with four of the quarter-finalists already known, the final four spots are still up for grabs over Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

With just two league games under their belts for the 16 senior clubs in the county, the race for the Moclair Cup gets under way this weekend with eight games across the four groups in the Treanlaur Catering Mayo GAA senior football championship getting going to the whistle over Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

Castlebar Mitchels 3-13

Finally getting over the 20-year-old itch and winning the Moclair Cup looks to have freed this Castlebar Mitchels team from the nagging doubts that many had about their ability to press on and mark themselves out as one of the truly great Mayo club sides. They have another opportunity to kick-on again this Sunday, when they go toe-to-toe with the current AIB All Ireland club champions, St Brigid's in Hyde Park. While bookmakers may have the Roscommon men as 4/7 favourites and Castlebar as 15/8 outsiders, those numbers will been have paid little heed around Páirc Josie Munnelly, as Pat Holmes along with his management team of Alan Nolan and Shane Conway put their players through their paces in preparation for Mitchels first provincial final since 1993. Last Sunday, the Mitchels wrapped up the Mayo double with a comprehensive 2-15 to 1-2 league win over the previous holders of the Moclair Cup, Ballaghaderreen. In 10 league and seven championship games they have gone into battle in this year, Mitchels have only been overturned once, on the opening day in the league, when the side they saw off in the county final (Breaffy) edged past them on a boggy and misty spring day.

Castlebar Mitchels have been going the extra mile this year in their quest to win their first county championship in 20 years, according to Richie Feeney. The team that have lost two of the last three county finals have been working hard to find those extra couple of inches to get themselves over the gain line and back to the promised land, he says. “I think the effort the lads have put in this year, is more effort that they’ve put in, in the last three or four years from what I’ve seen anyway.” Getting players to commit to stay around during the summer when the championship can enter a hiatus and not lot of football is played is another thing that has been a great boost to the cause this year he says. “I suppose the boys decided to stay around, there were a number of lads who went off travelling the last few years and things like that. Two of the boys went, but they came straight back into it and only missed one game and everyone decided to put the shoulder to the wheel and give it a good rattle.”