Start Spreading the News

Poor Mayo. John O'Mahony is having a torrid time this week trying to get his team ready for the opening round of the Championship.

Apparently, the Championship starts this weekend (though most of us should be forgiven if we have failed to notice the fact that Mayo are taking on New York this Sunday in the Connacht SFC).

And Mayo are struggling. There's lads doing exams, and there's a number of injuries. The team picked to face New York shows eight changes from Mayo's last championship game and contains four SFC debutants. In Friday's Irish Independent O'Mahony sounded worried:

"It shows how many young players we have in our squad. The New York game has come right in middle of exams, which is far from ideal. It's very demanding on the lads."

Speaking over a week ago the Fine Gael TD was equally optimistic:

"It will be important we don’t pick up any injuries as we won’t want to be stretched any further. Taking New York for granted would be very foolish."

Wake up and smell the Starbucks John... you're playing New York!

I'm reluctant to start into the usual northern complaint about Ulster teams having to negotiate through the quagmire of quicksand that is the Ulster SFC, but with Derry facing Monaghan, Tyrone playing Armagh and the coin-flipping outcome that Fermanagh and Down will produce (in a preliminary round!!), facing New York should be no more difficult than a stroll through Central Park.

It's another argument for another day (and Paddy Heaney had that day a few weeks ago in his 'Against the Breeze' column in the Irish News) but it highlights once more, the deficiencies in our Championship system. The disparities between the provinces. Galway and Mayo in Connacht, and Cork and Kerry in Munster are in the fast-track queue to the All-Ireland quarter-final.

O'Mahony and Mayo should be delighted with an early summer break Stateside. The rest of us are getting the waders out.