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With most of the focus at the minute on the seniors and their backdoor concerns, the start of this year’s minor championship has kinda snuck up on us. The provincial minor campaign got underway last Saturday with a quarter-final meeting between Roscommon and Sligo – which the young Rossies won by the narrowest of margins, on a 0-14 to 2-7 scoreline – and our lads make their appearance tonight.
This evening’s semi-final tie against Leitrim at Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada, Carrick-on-Shannon, is a hugely important fixture, for the simple reason that the winners are guaranteed a place in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, regardless of how they get on in the Connacht final. This is because the backdoor only operates at minor level at the provincial final stage (which, on the face of it, is an even dafter set-up than at senior) and so it makes this evening’s match a real all-or-nothing affair. Throw-in at Páirc Seán this evening is at 7.30pm.
The county has certainly experienced contrasting fortunes in this grade in recent years. The highs of 2013 and the capture of a seventh Tom Markham Cup title that year gave way to last year’s crushing 17-point hammering by Galway at the provincial semi-final stage. There was a fair bit of head-scratching here and elsewhere after that reversal and as a result there’ll be added interest in how this year’s crop of minors perform.
I’m pretty much in the dark about this year’s minors so Austin Garvin’s match preview in this week’s Mayo News (here) was a useful primer for me as I’m sure it will be for some of you as well. Needless to say I won’t be heading to Carrick myself this evening but I’ll cobble together a report of sorts on the match before the night is out.
Best of luck to Enda Gilvarry and his charges tonight.
UPDATES: Midwest Radio will be doing full live commentary of the match this evening. Also, the starting fifteen and subs for the fixture have now been named – full details here. Good luck to them.
Hope to get to Carrick on Shannon this evening. Interesting to see 4 from Westport on the team 3 in the fowards. Did Westport do well at under age level?
Westport are flying at underage in general and at minor. Big change. Good to see.
I’ve just updated the post but I may as well mention the updates here too. The first is that Midwest Radio will be doing full live commentary of the match this evening. Also, the starting fifteen and subs for the fixture have now been named – full details here.
A lot of posters got very upset on the blog when Roscommon had a big win over this team in the Minor League earlier. Now you all have your chance to do your talking, on the sidelines at Pairc Sean at 7.30 pm. Looking forward to a big turn out this evening
From what I seen of them this Mayo minor team are not near the level of 2013,2014 teams however I still think Mayo will win tonight to reach the last 12.
A good draw opportunity knocks as Sligo,Roscommon and Galway are all better than Leitrim.
Best of luck to Mayo minor team this evening,hopefully they will get a result, it interesting to note that in the complete panel there is only one North Mayo representative, obviously Westport/Castlebar are very strong at this level ,but you would think some of the North Mayo teams would have players suitable, maybe not ?
Three of us the way PJ, there’ll be a few there hopefully!
Very good first quarter. Dreadful 2nd quarter. 3-3 to 0-6 at the break but we haven’t scored in 15 mins.
Meanwhile Galway are blitzing Roscommon in Kiltoom. HT Gal 2-7 ros 0-2. The Galway team includes Larry Finnerty’s young fella… Very good forward.
Nice crowd here. Love this ground
Great start but very poor last 10!!
An accomplished 2nd half. Well done to the minors. They seem a good hard working team. It’ll be a massive step up in the Connacht Final though. Leitrim were quite poor but in fairness they have very limited numbers.
Good win for mayo minor’s the future is bright with the under 21’s and the minors well done
It’s way too early to judge this team yet. In fairness, any Mayo minor team will always be expected to win comfortably against Leitrim, their defence were particularly porous.
Decent second half but it was a non event. As Mayonaze said, Connacht final is the test for these lads.
Feel for Leitrim. They have people there every bit as mad about football as we have here. I don’t know how they keep on going
MayoMark +1 on that.. Great football people in the crowd with massive and unbiased knowledge, don’t know how they keep going!