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Donal Vaughan sends in a long ball to Barry Moran who sets up Conor Mortimer for another point after 11 mins.

Donegal 1-1 Mayo 0-3 

Donegal 1-1 Mayo 0-2
Conor Mortimer with 2 frees for Mayo. Mayo seeing much more of the ball now

Donegal 1-1 Mayo 0-0 after 90 secs.
Stephen Griffin with the point from a free, and Michael Murphy with the goal after he skinned Liam O'Malley

Mayo team lines out as selected. Kevin McLoughin not fit to take his place on the bench. Austin O'Malley is among the subs though.

St Gerald's beat St Jarlath's last night in Ballinrobe in the Connacht A Colleges semi final. A great win for Geralds, who had Aidan O'Shea and Aidan Walsh from last year's minor team and backboned by 'tubber men 
Claremorris play St Mary's in the other semi. Hopefully it will be an all-Mayo final.

Moysider, as far as I know Setanta will still be showing deferred coverage of the Donegal match on Sat night.

The Mayo News have some updates on player availability for Saturday. There are quite a few players that could miss out, depending on injury, illness and games scheduled for later this week

O'Mahony won't know until later in the week which Mayo forwards will be available for the game, with doubts over a number of players. Alan Dillon suffered a groin injury in training last week, and sat out last Saturday's challenge match against Cavan, while Andy Moran also missed the game with a knee injury. O'Mahony is 'hopeful' they will have recovered in time for next Saturday's game, but told The Mayo News last night (Monday) that he and his management team 'won't know until later in the week' whether they'll be available.
The Mayo boss will also be waiting on news of Austin O'Malley, who suffered a bad 'flu' which kept away from both work and training all last week. Aidan O'Shea is unlikely to be available for the trip to Donegal, as he will be playing for St Gerald's College on Friday night. A number of other players – including Ger Cafferkey, Kieran Conroy and Mark Ronaldson – are due to feature in Sigerson Cup action this week.
Regarding Cavan's visit to Ballinrobe last Saturday, O'Mahony noted that the game represented Chris Barrett's 'first involvement with us for nearly a year', and that Mickey Mullins, Seamus O'Shea, James Gill and Barry Kelly also got game time. With Mayo and Donegal both having lost their first league matches, next weekend's fixture takes on particular significance.

I wouldn't make many changes in personnel - it's the tactics and enthusiasm that need to be addressed more than anything.

The only changes to the starting 15 I would make are possibly:

Full Back line:
McLoughlin in for Vaughan - Hard on Vaughan as the Derry match was his first game, but I'd like to see how McLoughlin gets on.

Half Back line:
Trevor Mort in for Pat Kelly/Gardiner - I'm not sure about this move and it's the least likely to happen, but I thought Trevor looked very good in the half backs in 07 before the injury curse struck again. And he doesn't convince me as a top forward. I'd like to see Cunniffe get another chance at CHB, but I'm not sure which of the lads on the wing should make way. Maybe Gardiner, as two attacking half backs would leave us exposed. 

Midfield:
No change

Half Forwad line:
Alan Dillon at CHF, flanked by BJP and Pat Harte (if he's available, otherwise Andy Moran)

Full Forward line:
Conor Mort in for Andy Moran

I actually made more changes that I thought I would with that team. Regardless of who lines out, the main things I'd be looking for are:
- A more consistent use of the long ball into Barry Moran (unless it is giving no rewards obviously)
- Half backs/midfield/half forwards making themselves available for clearances from the full back line
- Players to play with their heads up looking out for the best option
- The entire team showing a desire to win the match
- A win 

It's been snowing on and off in Dublin all morning. Or, as I heard on Newstalk it was 'snailing' - a mix of snow and hail  
Had some craic driving through Citywest at 8 o'clock. There were hardly any cars in the Business Park and roads were lethal, skidded across the road going round a bend.
Promised to get heavy snow in the afternoon

I'd go along with the comments made so far - the match itself was overshadowed by the man who collapsed, it was very worrying to see CPR being performed on him. Glad to hear he's in a stable condition.
As has been said already Mayo made a bright start with Barry Moran winning all the ball that was played into him. It was a winning tactic that was then ignored for the rest of the match - made no sense (particularly when we had the wind in the first half).
I thought Cafferkey did fairly well. His man always seemed to be first to the ball, but Cafferkey defended well and didn't let him past too often. Liam O'Malley played well, Vaughan looked shaky but it was his first game so I wouldn't judge him too harshly.
I thought the half back line were falrly anonymous, provided little resistance to Derry when they were attacking in the second half.
McGarritty played well, Parsons made a couple of good bursts forward and got 1 or 2 points, but didn't win much ball in the middle. The more the match went on, the less influence we had in midfield.
In the half forwards, Dillon looked a bit off the pace and didn't really do anything of note apart from the frees. Trevor Mortimer looked like he hadn't touched a football at all this year. His handling was very poor and he seemed to be constantly tripping over himself and falling - very frustrating. In the second half he took a free from CHF position and send a garryowen down on top of Mikey Sweeney, the smallest player on the pitch. That would drive anyone mad, when Barry Moran at 6'5" or whatever height he is was in at FF. Billie Joe won a few balls but also faded out of the game. He'll always win possession and has a bit of drive about him so I'd keep him on the team.
Andy Moran did a lot of running and got on a fair amount of ball, but there was no end product. Once he had the ball, he ran with it but didn't seem to have any plan of where he was going. Barry Moran looks to have bulked up considerably and was a real threat, but ball stopped going into him (why JOM allowed this I don't know).
Mikey Sweeney was impressive. His handling was very good and he showed for a lot of ball in the first half, but his small stature is obviously a disadvantage. Definitely worth another couple of games though.
Conor Mort made a big difference when he came on - he really is the only consistent scoring forward we have, and has been for years.

To me, there seemed to be no intensity or even enthusiasm from Mayo which is worrying. The fact that they faded out of the game so badly could also suggest that we were one of the few counties that actually adhered to the ban on training in Nov and Dec. I'm hoping that is the case, and that we'll improve as the league progresses.

A poor start to the season, and if the performance level doesn't go up, we'll go down!
But there are positives to take from the overall sense of pessimism - Cafferkey made a fairly solid debut in FB, McGarritty looked to have some of his old form back, Mikey Sweeney looks lively and could nab a few scores. And the main one for me is that if it is drilled into the midfield and half forwards to let quick ball in high to Barry Moran, and the corner forwards have the sense to be available for the knock down, we have our own Donaghy.

If any of the matches are called off/postponed then it/they won't be shown.

LOL, that piece of wisdom put a smile on my face! Bringing the term 'pointing out the obvious' to a new level 

[MAYO (v Derry, NFL, 1/2/2009): David Clarke; Liam O'Malley, Ger Cafferkey, Donal Vaughan; Peadar Gardiner, Tom Cunniffe, Pat Kelly; Ronan McGarritty, Tom Parsons; BJ Padden, Trevor Mortimer, Alan Dillon; Andy Moran, Barry Moran, Mikey Sweeney.]

Will Joe over on www.mayogaablog.com has posted up the team that will apparently start on Sunday against Derry. He in turn got it from the mid-west website. There is no team named on mayogaa.com but there hasn't been any updates to that site in a long time (due to our lack of a PRO I suppose!)

MAYO (v Derry, NFL, 1/2/2009): David Clarke; Liam O'Malley, Ger Cafferkey, Donal Vaughan; Peadar Gardiner, Tom Cunniffe, Pat Kelly; Ronan McGarritty, Tom Parsons; BJ Padden, Trevor Mortimer, Alan Dillon; Andy Moran, Barry Moran, Mikey Sweeney.

So if this is the team that lines out, it's pretty much as expected. I'll be particularly interested in seeing the new lads Cafferkey, Vaughan and Mikey Sweeney. It will also be interesting to see if Barry Moran can have a similar impact to the day in Celtic Park.
I would have liked to see McLoughlin instead of Liam O'Malley maybe, but it might be asking too much from 3 debutants in the FB line.

Injuries have delayed Cafferkey's arrival into the team but he'll surely be given a run at FB for the league, and hopefully that will be one position we can say is sorted.

thats the sort of thing im on about.  before he has played one serious match at intercounty level . you rate hime as having one of the most difficult positions in football  sorted. poor lad in on a hiding to nothing. and when he has a nbad game the usual suspect will be swift to condem with magical phrases such as ' not inter county level' 'short a yard of pace' 'needs to bulk up' or later in the same conversation 'has become mustle bound'
all complete ballix

As RedandGreenSniper pointed out, what I was actually saying is that after a run at FB in the league, hopefully he can sort out out our full back problems. I think that's fairly reasonable. Is that not the hope with any new player that is brought in - that they can find a settled position on the team?
I'm not trying to put any pressure on Cafferkey, nor am I assuming that he'll slot in to FB seamlessly. I haven't seen him play enough to make any judgements on whether he's the answer, and I know a lot of people think he's more suited to the half backs. All I'm saying is I hope that he turns out to be a solid full back, which we badly need. 

As for the rest of your post, I'm a bit lost. Who is the 'usual suspect'? Is it aimed at someone in particular or were you just having a bit of a rant?

There's a big Trad Festival in temple bar this week which closes up on Sat so I'd say town will we busy

Who are you telling... Went in for a look yesterday evening. Great music for getting the craic going! Not well at all today though 

I think everyone will welcome the fact that JOM is playing Ger Cafferkey at FB and Barry Moran at FF.
FB has been a problem position for years - Heaney was the most consistent and even he was uncomfortable playing there. Injuries have delayed Cafferkey's arrival into the team but he'll surely be given a run at FB for the league, and hopefully that will be one position we can say is sorted. 

Barry Moran showed great promise at FF when he played there against Derry a couple of years, so hopefully he'll claim that position for himself - we need some sort of target man in there. You'd imagine that the likes of Conor Mort would thrive off a big target man laying off the ball, and Moran is well able to take a score himself.
As others have said, Austie has been given his chance and is not going to make it as the main man in the full forward line.

I have always though Aidan Higgins is an excellent corner back or half back. He brings a bit of strength that Mayo are often lacking and I could never understand why he wasn't a regular starter. He's in his 30s now, but I'd say he has another couple of years to give yet. He's definitely worth his place while the likes of Vaughan and McLoughlin are bedding in. 

From reading the posts, it seems people are becoming more enthusiastic and optomistic as the match draws nearer 
There are a lot of individual performances that people will be keeping an eye out for on Sunday. Hopefully the collective performance will be something to whet the appetite for the year ahead as well, but I'd settle for a solid looking FB line for now!

From time to time my father would say "Well you can scratch my arse with a broken bottle!" 
Means something like 'not a hope in hell'.

He also says 'Faith and he would...' or 'tráth and he would...'