Later than usual on this occasion, it’s time to confirm details of the matches involving teams from the county that are taking place this coming weekend.
There are two such games this time, both in football and both of which take place on Sunday afternoon. One’s at home and the other one is away, one of them involves the men’s football team and the other the women.
Let’s start with the LGFA game, which is away to Donegal in Division One of the NFL. O’Donnell Park, Letterkenny, is the venue for this crunch relegation showdown and throw-in is 2pm.
The task facing Mayo in this game is simple and that’s to avoid defeat. A win or a draw will keep us up at Donegal’s expense while a win for them will relegate us.
Donegal have struggled badly in Division One this year and they face into Sunday having lost all six matches they’ve played so far. Their points difference is currently -58.
While we’ve lost five of our six matches, our points difference, by contrast, stands at -10. You’d have to think, then, that we should be well enough equipped to get something from Sunday’s game and, if we do, that’s all we need to finish this up-and-down League campaign on a high.
This game is being streamed live on the LGFA Player – details on that here.
Back on home soil, at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park, the men are in the rarified environment of not having to worry about what result they achieve against Monaghan, as they’re already guaranteed their place in the following weekend’s Division One decider.
Opponents Monaghan are, by contrast, once more scrapping for their top-tier survival. They need to beat us and also hope that Tyrone get the better of Armagh in order to pull off yet another Round 7 escape.
I don’t think we’ll have any great desire to send the Farneymen crashing through the trapdoor but, all the same, we’ll have no desire either to see our unbeaten run ended, nor will we want to get back into the habit of being beaten at home either. If our avoiding such a fate means relegating them, then that’s just the way it is.
Sunday’s match throws in at 1.45pm. It’s not on television but there’s live radio commentary on Midwest and, of course, we’ll have a Discord chat going for club members from the game and a Final Whistle podcast up on Patreon soon after it’s over.
The best of luck to both Mayo teams in action this weekend.
I can only see a Mayo win, I’d imagine 7-8 changes and running the bench to get game time into players. That’s no disrespect to Monaghan but I expect those players from Mayo who haven’t played much to be mad for road and putting in a performance. As Malachy Clerkin put it, this isn’t lads with no experiences, this is the likes of Doc, McLoughlin, Tommy etc who have played in All Ireland finals.