The Mayo senior football club championship title race was blown wide open this weekend after three-in-a-row winners Ballina Stephenites bowed out of contention following a second successive defeat.<\/p>\n
The holders needed to beat Castlebar Mitchels to stay in contention for the knock-out stages but a seven-point loss means their hopes of winning a fourth Moclair Cup in a row have been ended.<\/p>\n
Mitchels ran out out 1-17 to 1-10 winners at Josie Munnelly Park on Friday evening with Neil Douglas\u2019 late goal putting the seal on a deserved win for Kevin Filan\u2019s charges.<\/p>\n
The result means that Mitchels, who last won the competition in 2015, have booked a quarter-final spot with a game to spare.<\/p>\n
The same goes for Garrymore who ran out 1-12 to 0-10 winners over Balla with Mayo defender, Eoin McGreal, scoring the all-important goal early in the first half.<\/p>\n
Mitchels will face Garrymore in the third round with a home quarter-final up for grabs for the winners.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Crossmolina and Aghamore couldn\u2019t be separated on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
A late free from goalkeeper, Adam Byrne, earned Aghamore a 1-14 to 0-17 draw against a Deel Rovers side that lined without injured Mayo midfielder, Jordan Flynn.<\/p>\n
This was a fourth successive championship draw at home for Aghamore who had looked set to spring a surprise when they led by 1-6 to 0-1 after just 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
But Crossmolina battled back in the second half, and despite a red card for Patrick Leddy in the closing stages, a couple of two-pointers from county star Conor Loftus and Diarmuid Coggins meant they were ahead entering additional time.<\/p>\n
But Aghamore grabbed a draw with the last kick of the game.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Claremorris produced the performance of the day to stun last year\u2019s beaten county finalists, Westport after a high-scoring shoot-out that produced seven goals and 39 points.<\/p>\n
The South Mayo side ambushed their visitors to run out 1-28 to 6-11 winners after an incredible game that ended with Westport goalkeeper, Paddy O\u2019Malley, seeing his effort for an equalising two-point free drift wide in added time.<\/p>\n
Mayo Under-20 attacker, Niall Hurley, led the way for Claremorris with 1-8.<\/p>\n
The winners, who are unbeaten after two rounds, led at half-time by 0-19 to 3-6 and powered on to victory in the second half.<\/p>\n
They will now face Charlestown in the third round with a place in the quarter-finals up for grabs.<\/p>\n
Charlestown needed a late own goal from Kilmeena to help them escape with a 2-11 to 1-11 win at home to last year\u2019s Intermediate champions.<\/p>\n
Mayo star Paul Towey turned in a man of the match display, shooting 1-5, a tally that included a brace of brilliant two-pointers.<\/p>\n
Kilmeena were five points behind at the break but a goal from a penalty by goalkeeper, Paul Groden, brought them back into contention.<\/p>\n
Two-pointers from Caolach Halligan and Mayo midfielder, Jack Carney, levelled the match for the first time in the 59th minute.<\/p>\n
But the outcome was settled by a late Charlestown goal that crossed the line via a Kilmeena deflection after Ben Crean\u2019s fisted effort for a point came back off the crossbar.<\/p>\n
Knockmore picked up their first win of the campaign at the second attempt with a 1-24 to 1-9 win away to Ballaghaderreen. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Breaffy racked up their second successive win of their Mayo SFC campaign with a hard-fought 0-15 to 1-8 victory away to Belmullet in Tallagh on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Mayo star Aidan O\u2019Shea turned in a man of the match performance for the winners as a strong second half display saw them come from behind to win by four points.<\/p>\n
A goal from Anthony Barrett helped the homeside to lead by 1-5 to 0-5 at the interval, but a two-point free from Mayo goalkeeper, Jack Livingstone, midway through the second period was a big turning point.<\/p>\n
That score put Breaffy ahead and they never looked back with Robbie Fadden, Joe Mellett (free), Aidan Cunningham, Daire Morrin and Pierce Deane (a 2-pointer) all on target for Se\u00e1n Deane’s charges.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Cillian O\u2019Connor marked his first start of the season for Ballintubber with a six-point haul as the West Mayo side beat Mayo Gaels by 1-23 to 2-13 in Clogher.<\/p>\n
Stephen O\u2019Malley\u2019s goal on the stroke of half-time meant Ballintubber led at the break by 1-8 to 1-3.<\/p>\n
But Mayo Gaels came roaring back in the third quarter and a goal from David Quinn put the outsiders ahead by 2-8 to 1-10.<\/p>\n
However, Ballintubber stuck to their guns with the likes of the aforementioned Cillian O\u2019Connor, Ciaran Gavin, Keelan McDonnell and Bryan Walsh all chipping in with scores to seal their first victory of the group stages. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mayo senior football club championship title race was blown wide open this weekend after three-in-a-row winners Ballina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[275244,18,19,17,26710,132],"class_list":["post-652659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-club-championships","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mayo-gaa","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117146364594032727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}