The fallout from the Spoongate affair continues, with the County Board now bemoaning the fact that they’ve had to fork out three grand, on top of the 5k fine meted out by Head Office, for the CCTV cameras, which, of course, will only be needed until after this year’s Connacht final (following which work on the New Model McHale Park gets underway). The same report, in De Paper, quotes County Board PRO, Noelle Horan (she’s the lady who has been telling us to be patient for the last two years while they “effect” some changes to the Mayo GAA website) who says they’ve given up the hunt as regards identifying the bowsie that hurled St Paddy’s spoon at Star. If updating a website has proved to be such hard work, I suppose it should come as no surprise that amateur sleuthing is also a task beyond the County Board’s competence. The Mayo News says that there are going to be undercover stewards at McHale Park the next day. That might be a piss-take, I think. This piece, about the supposed segregation of fans next Sunday, is and it’s quite an amusing one at that.

Enough of this April Fool’s jollity. The Mayo News is also reporting that Trevor Mortimor’s league campaign is over – that was a hamstring he pulled in Newbridge last Sunday. The same report says that BJ may now have to undergo an operation on his ankle which, if true, is likely to rule him out till well into the Summer. With Peadar Gardiner also out for a while, the injury list is beginning to lengthen. According to the same report, Austie picked up what Johnno has described as a “slight hip injury” the last day but it doesn’t sound too serious so hopefully he’ll be okay for the Galway match. Johnno also makes a fist at explaining why he didn’t bring on the subs sooner last Sunday but, personally, I don’t think his line of argument holds too much water. Make of it what you will.

The Mayo News also contains Mike Finnerty’s match report from last Sunday, Sean Rice’s opinion piece and, now that he’s finished his duties as midwife to Kosovo’s independence, there’s also a column by Kevin McStay. They’re all worth a look. The Mayo News also confirms that the U21 Connacht final against Roscommon is now scheduled for Kiltoom tomorrow week (9th April) with throw-in at 6.30 pm.

Finally, speaking of the Rossies, I see that John Maughan has decided to throw in the towel as their bainisteoir. It’s hardly the shock resignation of the year and, after that walloping Armagh gave them the other week, it was difficult to see how he could continue in the position. It’s easy, of course, to poke fun at Maughan but I think it’s fair to conclude that history will be a lot kinder to him than us contemporaneous observers have often been. Like him or loath him, he’s the man who led us to four Connacht titles and three All-Ireland appearances and it wasn’t his fault that we didn’t make it over the line in 1996. On that occasion, he was literally a bounce of a ball away from becoming an All-Ireland winning manager and so, although his spell in charge of the Sheepstealers didn’t turn out to be too productive, we can’t have any complaints about what he achieved during his time with us.