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Seems a bit odd to drop Regan alright, esp the week before club championship-if a couple of lads get injured this weekend (fingers crossed that they won't) then horan would have to go knocking! Doubly strange that it would only be one player which would lead me to believe that there's something more to the story.

Regardless, he seems to prefer Coen as the best of the 'uncapped' forwards so barring injury it's unlikely to affect team selection. Even if he never played though, you'd have thought being in the squad would be good for his development.

Any word on injured players? Barry? COC? Conroy? Hopefully there'll be no new names on the list by Sunday evening.

 Kerry will win this, 4-5 points I reckon. The backs might not be great but the cork forwards are average esp missing O'Neill

They'd also beat kildare or Tyrone by the same or more. A game v Mayo would be too tight to call. Donegal or most likely Dublin will be too good for them when that game comes

Yeah, 2 points from the 2nd half is woeful 

Good result for Donegal, keeps them out of the spotlight for the next few weeks and gives them plenty to work on.

It just shows how much of a difference a few missing players makes to even the best teams - Dublin, take say MDMA and O'Carroll out of the team and they would be up against it against the other top teams.

Thought Whelan was good the other night, some decent enough analysis. He probably won't last long.....

Should be round one wins for
Laois,Longford,Galway,Armagh,Derry,Tyrone,Louth,Westmeath.

I'd fancy at least one of Carlow / Tipp / Wicklow to spring a "surprise" - Carlow if I had to choose. Derry / Tyrone / Louth should all win with relative ease. The other two will be tight enough.

[Michael Moyles]

Freeman was suppose to have done well for Mayo. No surprise, saw him play college football 2 years ago with DIT and he outstanding. Been a few years on the panel without nailing down his  place. Some good competition when O Connor, Moran fully fit, Jason Doherty and Michael Moyles are all available.

Usually the comeback stories are about the other Crossmolina man!!!

Great to win yesterday, Roscommon did well on the breaking ball throughout but weren't able to take their chances when they had them early on and this prevented them from asking any real questions of Mayo. The game was won in the last 15 minutes of the first half, after playing reasonably well up until that, the Mayo lads started using the wind to pop over scores from out around the 40 without being under any pressure from Roscommon who must have expected them to try to work it in or something? After that, the Rossie heads dropped and they were lucky it was only a 12 point gap at the end.

Pretty much everyone played well although Dillon was well off the boil for some reason. Coen looked decent when he came on and it was good to see Andy get more game time. B Moran could find it hard to get back into the team when he's fit again – good problem to have though. We badly need CO'C back though for frees alone – if we missed 2/3 frees yesterday under very little pressure, it'd be more on a bigger day.

Despite a 12 pt win, there's a lot to work on for Mayo – the play got very sloppy towards the end (Dillon & Feeney missed handy goal chances). Some of the hand passing in the first half when Roscommon put pressure on the short kickouts was messy enough and would be punished by a better, harder-hitting team.

It was interesting that Horan replaced two of the full back line in the second half – wonder what his thinking is there? Giving the lads game time as he expects to use them later in the summer? Clarke also replaced at half time was strange to see.

These kind of games are of no use to Mayo though – while Feeney & Freeman played well yesterday, you'd have to wonder how they'll fare against a better defence? Donegal have already played Tyrone and are playing Down this weekend – two division 1 teams – where they'll learn a lot more than we have so far this year.

I'd expect that the Rossies will get a win or two in the qualifiers (assuming they don't come up against Tyrone) and could have a reasonable summer yet. In relation to the progress of the team – you only have to go back three years to when Mayo were beaten by Sligo & Longford so it doesn't take that much to go from being at a low ebb to being reasonably close to the top.

Just checked there, 9 of the team that started v Longford in 2010 started yesterday (some positional changes) and 3 more were on the bench (2 of whom would have potentially started had they been fit). The three missing are Howley (in Australia?), Harte (banjaxed knee?) and C Mort.

Clarke
Barrett  Cafferkey   Howley
Vaughan  Higgins   Mc Loughlin
S O Se  Harte
Moran   A O Se    Dillon
Mort    Moran  Freeman

We have been down that sorta road in the past when we used Colm Mc Menamin in a similar role. It worked and it did not work. Colm won loads of possession but was absolutely lost how to distribute it when he had it. Vaughan is a similar sort of player and I'd see the same result.

Jaysus, Vaughan may not be the greatest passer in the world but he's able to take his score a hell of a lot better than Colm Mac was

Pearse is easily a better stadium than McHale. The only problem is it's built in Salthill.

Eh?? Have you ever been to Pearse?? It's a rubbish stadium, standing only on three sides of the pitch - not much use for older people and anyone with kids.

I've been to loads of grounds around the country and Pearse is undoubtably one of the best (apart from it's horrendous traffic problem). Only one covered stand but it almost holds 10,000. Not many occasions when you would require more than that. Building anything bigger would just be a vanity project. Even the toilet facilities are vastly superior to the vast majority of grounds in the country. Always a pet peeve of mine as in most grounds the standard of jacks is abysmal.

Lack of seats of any kind on the far side of the pitch is a pain in the hole though

Anyway, back to the football.......

Not sure I'd share the confidence of some on here in relation to Feeney. I think he's a good player and will do a decent job foraging but I've never seen anything in him to think of him as a player with great vision - you can be as good as you like at passing but if you can't spot the pass then it's no good. Personally, I'd like to try Vaughan in the half forward line, not as a playmaker but as the player who drops back into defence but is free to burst forward without leaving a gaping hole.

Overall, our forward line still looks light enough, Freeman in particular still has a lot to prove. Varley was v good the last day but will surely be under more pressure on Sunday.

I expect Mayo to win midfield - Finneran / Higgins / Mannion won't be good enough to cope with the two O'Ses - and based on that along with higher levels of fitness & intensity, we should win the game. I predict Roscommon will start well and lead up to around half time with Mayo pulling them back in the second half and winning by 3.

DB was on newstalk last night, didn't seem to be too gone on Evans - said something along the lines of him being in it for his own good rather than the good of Roscommon football, not sure if that was in relation to being paid or what?? Seemed a bit odd to me, would have thought Evans was a decent enough fella. Cian Ward had nothing but praise for him after being involved with the dirty meathies last year.

Perhaps Cork and Kerry will have a close tussle for Munster but I can't see it myself.

Which of them do you think wil stroll it?? I'd see that game as being fairly even with Kerry as slight favourites.

I'd expect Kildare to give Dublin a good test as well. Hard to see past Mayo & Donegal in the other two but there could be a couple of tight games for one or both of them yet.

Pearse is easily a better stadium than McHale. The only problem is it's built in Salthill.

Eh?? Have you ever been to Pearse?? It's a rubbish stadium, standing only on three sides of the pitch - not much use for older people and anyone with kids.

The Rossies need to spend a few quid on the Hyde if they want it to be used for Connacht finals, if ye're not willing to do that then quit whinging. And if the Roscommon footballers need to use something like this as motivation then they can throw their hat at it right now.

How many starters are Fermanagh going to be missing?

None - all of the starting players will be starting 

Poorly enough written piece to be honest, too much Joe Duffy-style "emotion" and not enough facts.

If Tang parish is part of the Maryland / Tang club, what claims have Ballymahon on the players??

I presume there's a whole saga to this but I would have thought pretty much every parish is part of one (or two) clubs and players have to play for that club (or have the option of playing for one of the two clubs?)