Mayo travel to Ennis this Sunday to take on Clare in a Division Two semi-final of the National League. While there’s no chance for further progression in this competition for the two teams, there is a very significant prize on offer for the winners on Sunday in the form of promotion to Division One for next year.
In this episode of the Mayo News football podcast, we preview Sunday’s match at Cusack Park. Mayo News Sports Editor Mike Finnerty is in the chair for this episode and he’s joined by Mayo News columnists Billy Joe Padden and Ger Flanagan.
In assessing the importance of the Clare match, the lads ponder if Mayo gaining promotion back to Division One might be regarded as a more significant target for James Horan’s team this year than retaining their Connacht title would be. They go on to discuss how the team have performed in the League campaign to date and they look at the main reasons why Mayo are fancied to beat the Banner County on Sunday.
Special guest on this episode is former Clare and Mayo manager John Maughan who joins Mike to set the scene on a contest between two counties he knows so well. The current Offaly manager expects Clare to provide a stiff test for Mayo and, as well as sharing a few war stories, he gives his assessment on how Sunday’s match might go.
This episode of the Mayo News football podcast is now online and is available to listen to on iTunes, SoundCloud, Podomatic and Spotify. You can also listen to it directly on the Mayo News website as well as here on the blog using the SoundCloud player below or the one on the panel on the right.
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The Mayo News football podcast is sponsored by Ceramic City and Swinford Motors, two fine Mayo businesses with whom we’re proud to be associated.
I enjoyed listening to John Maughan. They sure have great facilities at the Faithful Fields in Kilcormac – lucky them.
Just to thank the boys for the podcast. Shortened my journey from mayo to Clare this evening. Great insights coupled with great humour.
Yea great podcast again lads. I agree with BJ., that promotion trumps anything the team might do this year. So vital to know where we are as a team. A place to measure how good the younger players are now, and how good they can become in the coming year. Division 1 is the only place to play the game. If we gain promotion on Sunday, we will have been very lucky to only have to play 4 games and not 7 or 8 over double the period of time. Clare are anticipating promotion the same as we are and someone is going to lose out. They have found a couple of nice young players and their tide is on the rise.
Great podcast as always.
On the question of did we improve? I personally don’t think we have, because we still let teams into games we should be beating out the gate. Let’s face it Mayo football team are in the top teams in Ireland. Top teams beat other teams not as good as them, the very odd time they may get caught out. It’s a mentality we must acquire. When we played big teams we have been in great positions coming down the home straight and yet we let it slip! This in my humble opinion is a hurdle we must jump. The players are there and have been for a while now, so let’s get the job done.
No if, and or but.
Dismantle Clare and move on. That’s the level we have to operate at.
Come on Mayo
I don’t think you can answer whether we’ve improved or not, going by a few division 2 games. It doesn’t look like we’ve a ready made replacement for Chris Barrett, but on the other hand Mattie Ruane and Tommy Conroy seem to have kicked on from last year.
@Full Forward, you say top teams beat other teams not as good as them and it’s a mentality we need to acquire. I would say that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for years. In 5 of the last 6 years we’ve been knocked out of the championship by Dublin, a team we’re just not as good as. We’ve beaten all the other contenders in that time.
Agree 100 percent with wideball. Can’t say if mayo have improved until the season ends not after 3 league games when players not at full throttle. Clare won’t be easy to shake off but we should win with 6 or 7 pts to spare
Wide Ball I agree completely with those sentiment. We have beaten the rest when we needed to. Dublin because were not good enough. Chris is a hard man to replace as is David and Keith, Donnie etc. Division 2 is not the place to measure progress and this is a penny that has not dropped with some posters. Also I will be happy with a one point win on Sunday. The real meaning of this, is that we will be back in Div 1, and anything else is noise.