I dunno about you but I’m facing into a pig of a week workwise so I need to get this one sorted pronto.

First off, my thanks to Ed for doing the honours on the match report here on the site yesterday evening.  It was only a few hours before throw-in that I landed the task on him and, true gent that he is, he had his flowing prose on the proceedings in my inbox within a few hours of the final whistle.  Man of the match performance.

This meant that Colm Gannon really had to be on his toes to ensure that he got his match report in the Mayo Advertiser out first but he was and he did – here it is.  Not content to rest on his laurels, though, Colm also got a post-match audio piece with James Horan, which is worth a listen to and which I’ll come back to anon.

There are also match reports from Ballyhaunis in this morning’s Indo and Times and Mike Finnerty has now done his one in the Mayo News as well.

In that audio piece, James Horan attributes his team’s win yesterday to the way that they re-organised themselves at half-time.  Like the GMIT game, we were flat enough in the opening half and James remarks that the six points we had on the board at the halfway stage was a fair enough return given our lack of possession and the way we were getting cleaned out of it in midfield.  Jason Gibbons came in for James Kilcullen in the middle for the second half and on the audio JH says that our second half turnaround was based on how we dominated midfield, moved the ball well out of the backs and drove good ball into the forwards.

I thought it was interesting that he said that, aside from the FBD panel, there are another 15/20 guys in the frame but who are on third-level duty (one of whom surely is Jason Doherty, who bagged an eye-catching 3-3 for NUIG yesterday) and that those who make the cut for the league panel will be the ones who display the greater desire and attitude.

It was also noteworthy that James said he’d be sitting down shortly to chew the cud with U21 boss Ray Dempsey as I have it on good authority that no such discussions ever took place between senior, U21 and minor management under the ancien régime.  Another hint, then, that this new beginning has the potential to be a bright one for us.