Sweet Mother of Jesus, will it ever stop raining?  Summer, my hole.  Apparently it’s going to be warm, hot even, on Sunday: great, I really can’t wait for some warmer rain.

Right, we’re getting close to the day itself and there’s already been plenty of chatter about our match so here’s some links to same in case you haven’t located them yourself.

The lads at the Mayo News did their usual pre-match podcast earlier in the week and they say they’ll also be doing a post-match one early next. As ever, it’s worth a listen. Those Nordie boys on the Out in Front Podcast did a full preview of the weekend’s action the other day and Old Mr Sourpuss himself was on giving his tuppence worth about our game. He had nothing to say about potholes and the like, which would be more in his line, but, for what it’s worth, he does reckon we’ll win. The Irish Examiner podcast covers the same ground, with Galway’s Ray Silke doing the honours on our game.  Ray doesn’t reckon either team is up to much – his contribution to proceedings starts about 15 minutes in. David Brady and Liam Hayes covered the action on Newstalk’s Off The Ball programme last night and although I haven’t listened to it yet, those two gents are always good for a guffaw or three.

That’s about all the audio there is.  RTÉ are first out of the traps (well, they have to be first with something I guess) with their written previews of the weekend’s action and, for our game, they give a tentative nod to the visitors.   John Maughan has a long preview piece in the Mayo Advertiser where, after considerable rumination, he comes down in favour of us. Ray Silke has a companion piece in the Galway Advertiser where he eventually opts for his own countymen to do it. There’ll be plenty more pre-match stuff in the papers tomorrow, no doubt.

Onto the betting where Paddy Power have us at 5/6 and the visitors at 11/8.  A sneaky tenner at 7/1 on a first ever championship draw between us at McHale Park might, however, be the value punt here.

I’ll keep the poll running here on the site until tomorrow night (by which time I should be back on home soil in the west) but at the minute, with 159 votes cast, it’s running 59% to 41% in our favour.  Last-minute nerves are obviously at play here, however, as the vote was 70:30 for us earlier in the week.

If you’re in the facetheball.com mini-league (an update on which I’ll do at some point next week – I promise), don’t forget the raft of predictions that you need to sort out before the deadline, which is 1.30 pm tomorrow. With twelve matches down for decision over the weekend, including eight Round 1 qualifier ties, this could be the mini-league equivalent of Becher’s Brook so approach those predictions with caution.

Finally, I don’t know if any of the rest of you heard the interview on RTÉ radio earlier this evening with newly crowned European boxing gold medalist Ray Moylette but it made for great listening.  When they had finished talking about his exploits in the ring, Ray was asked about his native county’s chances on Sunday and, quick as a flash, he said that the team could prove to be like himself by peaking at just the right moment.  Here’s hoping you’re right about that one, Champ.