This coming weekend, at last, allows everyone to draw breath after five hectic weekends of Championship action.
But that’s just the Senior team. Two other Mayo teams are in action this Saturday and, for both of them, these are crunch games.
The ladies have an All-Ireland Championship round-robin clash with Donegal – aside from anything else, this is a timely warmer-upper ahead of Saturday week’s totemic SFC meeting between the counties – on Saturday afternoon. That game throws in at the lovely O’Connor Park in Tullamore at 1.30pm.
A bit like the lads, it’s all up for grabs going into this Mayo/Donegal LGFA showdown, only in this instance it’s the Mayo ladies who have the upper hand going into the contest. They beat Tyrone in their opening round-robin game a few weeks back and Tyrone then beat Donegal last weekend.
The margin of victory in both games was three points, which means we currently lead Group 4 on points difference: we’re on +3, Tyrone are on 0 and Donegal -3.
This means that Donegal need to beat us to keep alive their hopes of reaching the knockout stages, as two of the three sides in the group go through. If they manage to do this, then their margin of victory will determine whether or not it’s us or Tyrone who also qualify.
If it’s less than three points we go through, if it’s more than three Tyrone do. I’ve no idea at all, I must confess, what happens in the event that Donegal have exactly three points to spare over us.
From our perspective, though, it’s quite simple – avoid defeat and we’re through for sure. As I said, it’s the inverse of the situation facing the lads.
Forty miles or so further north that afternoon, the Mayo Minors are in action and this one is a knockout fixture. Their All-Ireland MFC quarter-final against Dublin throws in at Pearse Park in Longford at 3pm.
The match forms part of a triple-bill at the venue, with the Minor game followed at 5pm by the All-Ireland U20 semi-final against Galway. Then, at 7pm, the All-Ireland MFC quarter-final between Galway and Kildare throws in. That’s a cracking line-up, a veritable afternoon’s festival of underage football.
The Dublin Minors were, of course, narrowly beaten – after extra-time – by Kildare in the Leinster final a few weeks back. When you consider that our provincial final against Galway went to extra-time as well you’d have to think that both our quarter-final and Galway’s against Kildare are likely to be very evenly contested fixtures.
Somebody asked in the comments if I was going to put up a live feed on the blog of our Minor match. The answer is I will if I can, though it does depend on what I’m doing here on the day and, of course, I’ll only be able to do this if it’s streamed like the Connacht MFC final was.
I’ll keep an eye out for details on this and so should you – if anyone has any positive news on this, please shout in the comments and I’ll sort it from there.
The best of luck both to the ladies and the Minors in their respective matches this weekend.
Are you not away on holidays willie Joe? dedicated to the cause
How do I break it to the wife that I’ll be gone again Saturday to Longford to support the Mayo minors? I told her In Croker Saturday we have this weekend off lol
I’m the same backdoorsam!
Lads bring them with ye and treat them to a nice dinner on the way home then everyones happy
I think Backdoorsam, you need to be a man about this, face the facts and lie to her.
Tell her your heading up the country to have a look at new carpet for the house.
If she finds out though, you will have several weekends off.
The best of luck to the Ladies and the minors.
Make no mistake ladies re scoring difference. Go out and win and don’t leave it to chance.
Hope the minors put in a top display and down Dublin. It would be nice to have the minors playing in Croker in a few weeks before we take the field in the seniors against the Dubs( Probably), after we take care of a little business with Donegal in 2 weeks time.
I think Minor game is on TG4 you tube. A difficult assignment as Dublin were just as good as Kildare The Kildare Galway game should be interesting also as indeed should the U20 Semi Final As you said WJ it should be a cracking days football
I could be wrong but I’m almost certain I saw on TG4 earlier this evening that all 3 games from Longford on Sat will be streamed live on their YouTube channel.
@Backdoorsam
The solution is multi-actioned.
– That’s a Friday night romantic dinner
– Yes, you have splashed out, on a spa day just for her on the Saturday for her to get away from it all
– Now crucial, unfortunately you need to do a load o jobs around the house today until Friday and have her knowing yer doing something useful on Sunday.
Result: Absolutely unreasonable that this man cannot go to Longford on Sunday 🙂
Going to Longford on Saturday rather. Pretty disastrous plan if after doing all of that you end up a day late in Longford 🙂
TG4’s YouTube channel are showing all 3 of the underage football games on Saturday, including ours at 3 pm.
Fair play to them, TG4 provide a great service for all GAA followers. Looks like they’re showing 8 or 9 games in total over the weekend.
Saturday 27th –
All-Ireland U20FC semi-final
Galway v Dublin, 5pm – TG4.ie
All-Ireland MFC quarter-finals
Mayo v Dublin, 3pm – TG4.ie
Kildare v Galway, 7pm – TG4.ie
What does everyone think of the GAA reducing the capacity of MacHale Park to just over 25K? There will be a lot of disappointed people that cannot get tickets. I would have thought you’d easily fit 30,000 into it safely. I suppose we’ll have to be quiet about it or we’ll be moved to Limerick
Previous large crowd at Machale Park was the match against Galway. There were crowding issues at that game especially in the MacHale Road side of the ground. Walkways were crowded and passage was prevented by people standing up and looking for friends already in the stadium. At times this was approaching a dangerous situation. This was despite large parts of the ground being relatively empty. This could be avoided by opening more gates. Everyone entered from the Mitchells side of the ground. Furthermore I cant see why in an all ticket match in an all seater stadium that seat numbers are not printed on the tickets with set access points to set parts of the ground thereby being able to sell the full amount of seats. Concession could be given to lesser seats say to the left of the main stand. No point looking back to packed grounds of the past. Post Heysel, post Bradford and post other tragedies this had to change.
Sinabhuil,
You can’t print seat numbers for concrete seats which are not numbered.
What you could do, though, is designate access points on the tickets with a corresponding map of the ground on the tickets. But are there proper turnstiles and enough of them to give access to what was the Albany end of the ground?
Sinabhuil,
You can’t print seat numbers for concrete seats which are not numbered.
What you could do, though, is designate access points on the tickets with a corresponding map of the ground on the tickets. But are there proper turnstiles and enough of them to give access to what was the Albany end of the ground?
@Shinabhuil… You cannot eliminate risk entirely, … Bradford was a fire, nothing to go on fire in MacHale Park, so that’s a Red Herring… what was Hysel?, I remember it well on TV… English club’s were barred from Europe? afterwards, well that might give you an idea what it was,… You didn’t mention Hillsborough , Which WAS severe overcrowding among other things…. in any case, none of these 3 Ground’ were All Seater which MacHale Park most definitely is… Personally I don’t think any of those tragic event’s have any revalance to a big GAA Match in Castlebar!…
I don’t think you need seat numbers.
You just need the entry point printed on the ticket.
Bacon factory end or Albany end.
Any concert in the 3 arena you have to go to a specific entry and it breaks up the crowd.
No entry unless you go to the designated end.
I think there might be extra tickets released yet. They might be just doing the sold out routine to create a bit of panic buying of say another 5,000 tickets.
Why not have “Albany end entrance only” printed on another 5 or 6 thousand tickets and steward the venue properly to direct people to the correct end of the ground.
I was at a Bradford game a few years after the tragedy and a chip van went on fire. You should have seen the panic and fear in people’s eyes. As regards crowds and risk I would rather see people not get access and be extra safe than relax in any shape on safety. I just feel that if many of the stewarding, safety, turnstile and walkway issues were improved that we could safely see more admittance. The issue has been well addressed above by Revillino and Andy D. I am just trying to add a bit of balance to the argument.
@Shinabhuil… Really, What has a Chip Van going on fire in Bradford to do with the capisity of Mchale Park???…It doesn’t even have anything to do with the capisity of Bradford City football Ground either… According to a report in the Examiner a repesentive of Mayo GAA said it (the capisity of Mchale Park, for this Match) was a matter for Central Council…. Anyone who has regularly attended Game’s in MacHale Park Castlebar, knows well that the safe capisity is a few thousand in excess of 30K …. It’s past time for some deatailed answers from the Central Council, as to what exactly is the Criteria for their capisity calculation of all Stadia. . and it’s time for a few GAA Journalist to ask them hard questions…. Forget Marty Morressy (likable and all he is , and a very good Match commentator) asking a hard question…he once asked Brian Coady a very hard but ledigamate question, and he? never got over the answer he got.. RTE’S Brian Carty might be a better bet… That’s not to say that he will get Straight Answers… One answer last year that we got from the Central Council last year was ‘Their could be voilence in the streets of Newbridge, between Kildare and Mayo fan’s if Newbridge or Nowhere went ahead’ but no revelant answer was given by the Communication director of the GAA when asked as to his renumeration…instead he told us about how good a Volunteer he was for his local GAA Club ..This year we already heard from Central Council that Dr Hyde Park was not ‘Suitable’ .. Maybe the Central Council think that their are Children’s ‘Swings’ or extremely slow moving car’s in MacHale Park, where a TD could easily injure themselves and that could easily stop them from running.. They should be stopped running, but it’s running for the Dail!