The club championship down on home turf is – as regular readers will know – a bit beyond my remit, what with geographical considerations (I can’t honestly recall when I was at a club championship game in Mayo) and of course my undying, unyielding devotion to Vinnies (though the buggers are already gone from the Dublin championship amid mutterings of internal strife within the camp). But it’s a dull Tuesday and football news is becoming an increasingly rare commodity as the long nights come within touching distance so the club stuff it’ll have to be.
The Mayo News has match reports on all four of last weekend’s quarter-finals and, for anyone who hasn’t yet seen them, here they are. Mike Finnerty was kept busy at McHale Park, as he did the reports on Crossmolina’s dethroning of champions Ballaghaderreen and Knockmore’s hard-fought win over Ballintubber, while Sean Rice did the honours for the drawn match between Castlebar Mitchels and Shrule/Glencorrib. Meanwhile, Daniel Carey was in Ballina for that remarkable nine-goal shootout in which Charlestown got the better of Kiltane. How on earth did Tom Parsons fail to score in that one, by the way?
The first of the semi-finals – the heavyweight clash between the Deel Rovers and Knockmore – is set for McHale Park this coming Sunday (throw-in 2pm, according to this preview in the Mayo News), while Charlestown have to wait to see who prevails in the Castlebar v Shrule/Glencorrib replay, which is also due to be played next Sunday (though I can’t find any details of where and when this match is on). The border lads will, I suppose, still be favourites to advance in that one but the fact that the Mitchels are still in the hunt means there’s a chance that the county final could end up becoming the first sideline showdown between John Maughan and Peter Ford since the 2005 Connacht final. Now, that could be fun.
Thanks WJ, some good reading there.
A question for any of those readers who were actually at these matches – Any players on show that made a case for being added to the county team or panel next year?
Is it the case that if players haven’t ‘put themselves on the radar’ via county minor and U21 teams then its very difficult to make the jump from club to county level, after a certain age, whatever that player’s club form?
Mike might be right there. It seems that a guy arrives on an under age development squad and leaves it at pension age. If you fail to make that squad and the subsequent age groups you appear to be a non person in Mayo football circles.We are probably missing loads of players through that lazy way of squad development. Pat Fallon, James Horan, Noel Connelly are amongst a few who failed to set the under age group alight but had good senior careers.
The management team should be attending each and every single one of these matches and looking to see can they unearth a bit of talent…
if you are raching your county senior club championship quarter finals, you must be doing something half right..
Only 1 kiltane man on the panel this year.. None on the minors.. Looks like he scored in an eventful game though!
Hi Guys … agree with al the above … not that im in the habit of calling out names or anything like that , but having watched a lot of club football over the last few seasons iot appears to me that there are a few players out there that just dont get a look in … take for example alan freeman from aghamore, last years top scorer from play and from frees in the intermediate championship , which incidently aghamore won and not even a look in john o mahonys side… or barry regan from ballaghadereen who gots 1 game against sligo it in the fbd ? mind boggling sometimes …