With life slowly returning to something other than a turkey-filled pigfest, with it comes the first bit of tangible football news for a good while.  The first news report of the year isn’t a positive one either, as it appears that Conor Mortimer could well be missing for the entire 2011 season – full details from Hogan Stand.  Losing Conor for  a whole year isn’t exactly a welcome development but I guess we’re far less dependent on him now than we were a few years ago.  The likes of Mark Ronaldson, Enda Varley, Alan Freeman and Neil Douglas all have experience of operating in the full-forward line and I’d expect to see Cillian O’Connor making his senior debut before too long so it’s obvious that we have a number of alternatives to Mort at this stage.

Looking at alternatives would appear to be the sensible approach that James Horan and his new management team will be taking for the upcoming FBD League.  This piece in the Mayo News confirms as much, with names likes the Ballintubber quartet of Jason Gibbons, Cathal Hallinan, Cillian and Ruadhri O’Connor (see, I told you so), as well as Tourmakeady’s Kevin Dolan, Burrishoole’s James Moran and Ballinrobe’s David Killeen all being mentioned in dispatches.  Two trial games were held in McHale Park at the weekend and in that Mayo News report, it’s stated that James already has a fair idea of the teams he’ll field in the FBD, with every one of the thirty or so lads involved at the minute – the bulk of whom would not appear to have been part of the 2010 squad – set to play some part over the three pre-season matches.  We’ll be seeing plenty of new faces over the coming few weeks, it would appear.

And, possibly, we could be seeing plenty more snow – if this report is to be believed.  If this does come to pass then the weekend’s return to the fray may have to be postponed but it’s too early to be jumping to any such conclusions at this stage.