It was a case of two out of three ain’t bad for the Mayo teams in Connacht club Championship action this weekend. The two wins yielded two provincial titles so let’s start with those victories.
Yesterday at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence Tooreen beat Galway’s Moycullen by 1-15 to 0-14 to claim the Connacht Intermediate hurling Championship. It was a title they won back in 2019 but, of course, they never got the opportunity to defend it last year. Having now conquered Connacht again, Tooreen go forward to the All-Ireland IHC semi-finals early in the New Year. Match report on yesterday’s game from the Connaught Telegraph is here.
This afternoon it was the turn of the women footballers of Castlebar Mitchels to taste provincial Championship success. The Connacht LGFA Intermediate final was played today at Swinford Amenity Park where Mitchels proved far too strong for Tourlestrane of Sligo, winning at the finish by 4-12 to 1-7.
At Pearse Stadium yesterday, meanwhile, Mayo Gaels lost out narrowly to Galway’s Naomh Anna in the Connacht IFC semi-final. This was a real rip-roaring Championship tie and the Gaels seemed to be on their way to the final as they led by four points at the second water break but the Leitir Mór lads stormed back into it over the final quarter, forcing the game to extra-time, with John Gallagher having an injury time goal for Mayo Gaels controversially disallowed. The Galway champions eventually came out on top after exta-time by 3-12 to 1-14.
Fantastic 2nd half by Tooreen into the wind. They had the superior skill and fitness to close out the game. They will play the Leinster Champions in the semi-final. After losing out narrowly to the Cork & Kilkenny Champions in the last 2 semi-finals this could be their chance to reach the All Ireland Final in Croke Park in February. They play either the Wexford or Kildare champions.
But regardless, what a great achievement to win 3 Connacht finals in 4 years!
A deserved victory for the Castlebar women, even if the scoreline might be a little harsh on Tourlastrane.
Some excellent scores and terrific defending in the second half allied to a few clinically taken goals by the Mitchels full forward line widened the gap on the scoreboard but, the 3rd quarter was tight enough and had a few Tourlastrane efforts been a foot or two to the other side of the post then things would have been tighter still..
Fair play to Connaught Ladies who had it well covered and the Swinford pitch stood up well given the weather.
Puckout while on paper a semi vs a Kildare team looks a damn lot nicer than a KK one in the hurling world, it was a comfortable win for Naas over the KK champions Glenmore and they also absolutely blitzed Castleknock of Dublin in round one also.
Naas have been on the go a good while in this competition, like Tooreen, so have plenty of experience and the area will be no doubt on a high with the exploits of the footballers this season also. Their opponents in the final Oylegate have progressed very comfortably also, so there’ll be nothing soft in the semi. This was a great win for Tooreen but the Galway intermediate championship is struggling hugely with 24 teams in senior. Kilconieron (who would be one of the better winners in recent years) absolutely blitzed Moycullen a few months back in the delayed 2020 decider. But its great to see Tooreen making hay and the two semi final appearances over the past couple of seasons should stand to them
This competition can be deceiving in that we’re conditioned to thinking Kilkenny and Cork opponents are automatically the teams to beat, and they generally have been in recent years, however we could well have a semi-final line-up of Kerry v Fermanagh, and Kildare v Mayo which would be quite something
Fair point Ciaran, about Galway champions but you can only beat what’s in front of you and Tooreen have done that. And yes there are no easy games at AI level but not playing one of the traditional powerhouses of hurling is a help, they ran the Cork champions very close 2 years ago so they’ll give it a right go.
Oh for sure Puckout – Tooreen have well and truly exterted their dominance over the Galway champs at this stage – 3 wins in the last 4
When the Galway senior champ is culled this will obviously become a much harder task (and by extension winning the all ireland will be much harder overall when all counties are required to have only 16 senior teams) so hopefully they make hay either this year or next year, and get a deserved spot in Croker
From memory Antrim and Carlow have produced the most ‘obscure’ winners in this grade – and both counties are more or less knocking on the door of the ‘top 10’ in the hurling rankings for a while now, so it would be some coup for a Mayo side to win it out
Great achievement by Tooreen. Hopefully they take this chance to get to an AI final as Ciaran says above, Galway will be forced to cut from 24 senior clubs to 16. Cutting 8 senior clubs will make it very difficult for the likes of Tooreen in the future as the Galway intermediate champions will be much stronger.
Hi folks, I want to get the Mayo GAA season ticket the club plus €250 but the season ticket website only say renewal only.
Any suggestions?
Micheal Moran ,Mayo Season Tickets are only available for renewal, to current members, till January 3. Anyone who doesn’t renew by then, their tickets will be made available to the general public.
I have heard, over the years, that a waiting list is in operation for these tickets. Whether that ‘list’ is still in operation I don’t know.
Perhaps email the season ticket office in Croke Park and they may be able to tell ya.
Thank you Stephen Cowley.
New podcast episode is up – this one is an in-depth interview by Billy Joe with Andy Moran.