It’s freezing Friday with only a bit over 48 hours to go now ’till the ball is thrown in for Game 1 and there’s a list of things to bring to your attention so here goes.
First up, Joe from the Neale GAA Club has been on to tell me about the ‘Up for the Match’ event that the club is hosting in O’Malley’s Bar in Cross tomorrow (Saturday) night. There’ll be music, dance, interviews with footballing luminaries such as Pat Fallon and Ray Silke as well as food and drink. The event is being run in conjunction with Cancer Care West and I’m told that tickets – priced at a tenner a pop – are selling out fast.
Next comes the welcome news that Galway GAA are laying on a Park and Ride facility for Sunday, which involves parking out at the airport with bus in from there. Those of you who, like me, have all-too-vivid memories of sitting in gridlock for ages trying to get clear of the city after a match in Pearse Stadium may want to avail of this facility, full details on which are available here.
Next up is the Face the Ball championship mini-league, which Mike Kelly kindly sorted out earlier this week before I had the chance to do so. If you want to take part in the fun, just log into your Face the Ball account, join the Football Championship competition, then join the mini-league by entering the code 1GARViTxShva when prompted to do so. There are only six entrants in the mini-league so far but you’ve still got time to join if that rocks your boat.
Next is some news especially for Seanog (MORT IS BACK!!!!!!! That Seanog). He’s not, has no intention of coming back and has no regrets at all at all, according to this piece in today’s Indo. So there.
Elsewhere in the papers, today’s Irish Examiner has interviews with Galway’s Paul Conroy and with Kevin McStay, who, after a bit of arm-twisting reckons we’ll do it on Sunday. That’s also the conclusion reached in RTÉ’s match preview while there’s a more non-committal preview on GAA.ie, though that one does contain the interesting observation that our all-time championship record against the Tribesmen currently stands at 38 wins apiece (with six draws). One more reason – as if one were needed – for our lads to do the business on Sunday.
UPDATE: More pre-match chat, this time in the form of the ever informative and entertaining Mayo News podcast, has just gone live, available here. Thanks to Mayo Maori for the tip-off on this.
Would I be right in saying that its not often Galway has Ballinasloe lads on the senior team, I see the centre back is from there. Maybe I’m mad wrong,
The Mayo News podcast has just gone live there too in the past 15 mins Willie Joe
http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17807:audio-football-podcast-2013-2-mayo-v-galway-preview&catid=87:sport-football-podcast&Itemid=100166
Thanks for that, just updated the post to mention it. Always worth a listen!
We played Ballinasloe last year and they had some very good players. 2 very good midfielders. I dont know if this guy is one of them.
in the Herald the other day McStay was very vocal in his opinion that Mayo would definitely retain Connaught and could even win the All-Ireland, how come he suddenly needs his arm twisted?
Kevin is afraid of what could happen, hard to blame him. I think we all have a touch of fear of losing on Sunday, I suppose we know that Galway have some good players and if they could get a grip of us they could win.
And we all know that our 3 first choice ff line are out injured, this really puts responsibility on Coen, varley and freeman. Hopefully one or more of them will be able to
perform well enough to win the game. Coen in particular has a unique opportunity, unknown quantity and all that, he might be putting the head down and heading for goal early just to see what he can do.
It’s easy to be nervous about Sunday and the injured players we have but then you think of Boyle,Keegan, caff ,Keane etc and realize that Mayo are very solid in defense, if they can hold Galway to 10 points I really think the Mayo forwards and midfield will score enough to beat them
This will be tight ,form go s out the window with these derby games hope we have enough to beat them on paper we look that bit stronger but its all on the day so we need to stay focus for over 70 mins and be on our game to win hope the forwards can do well and they might , heard a rumor today that tom cuineffee was going to start for keane ,,, and dillon for coen how true it is will see sunday so ere s hoping for a good game and mayo win with please god will be a long summer up mayo..
Rumour spinning around that Dillon will start wing forward with coen dropping to the bench and coc going into the corner! Don’t know how true it’s gonna be but wouldn’t be surprised either way!
Rumour has it tha Vaughan is going to Midfield,Aido to centre half and Turbo Tom to number 6.
I think there must be something to the whisper on Dillon.
Egan….you in the four ways tonight for a few pre match drinks?
No sean saveing myself for tomorrow going to hit salthill early ,, hope weather is better than today or will make it hard to play , eres looking forward to a mayo win