Alan Dillon is the latest player to be rated doubtful for the Sligo game. According to this article in The Mayo News, he underwent minor surgery last week for something called a haematoma in his hip. Needles and blood and stuff by the looks of it but, although I never made it to medical school, I reckon the patient will have recovered in time. If he doesn’t, Mike Finnerty reckons that Pat Harte or BJ could start on the forty. Well, BJ has started in every other central position, so why not CHF?

The other point of note from that article is that Conor appears to be okay again. If there’s one benefit of the long, long wait for this game it’s that there’s been plenty of time for lads to recover. Trevor Howley still won’t make it but having Conor back is a major boost. That article concludes with Johnno doing his usual lowering-the-expectations routine. Did he come out with the same crack on the Lisbon Treaty vote, by the way?

There’s plenty of other soft focus stuff in The Mayo News about Sunday’s game. Like this in-depth interview with Alan Dillon, where the Ballintubber man says that the back door isn’t an option for us this year. He also bats away deftly the question Mike Finnerty poses about the Mac issue. There’s also an interview with former county player Eugene McHale, now resident in Sligo, who says that Mayo aren’t as good as people (who would they be now?) are making out and that Sligo certainly aren’t as bad as people are saying. Well, he does have to live there, I suppose. Daniel Carey has a sketch about McHale Park in de rare oul times. Topping the lot of these is a lively piece on Johnno, Mac and all the rest by my old china An Spailpin Fanach.

In the columns, Kev reckons it’s going to be a 50/50 call on Sunday but he does reckon that this is a “progressive” team, one that’s well-prepared, committed, fit and enthusiastic. And bored out of their trees from all this waiting around too, I reckon. Kev does some speculating on the starting line-up, as does The Voice of Experience but I guess we haven’t that long to wait now till we get the definitive list to mull over.