First-ever Gaelic football match played under new rules in MacHale Park ends in defeat for Mayo

Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association charity game 

Mayo 1-14 Monaghan 1-16

In Castlebar 

MAYO’S first-ever game under the new rules of Gaelic football has ended in defeat. 

An experimental Mayo team fell six points to Monaghan at half-time and could not recover the deficit after making a raft of changes at half-time. 

A spell which saw the Andy Moran-coached Farney County hit 1-6 on the bounce made a gap too far to bride on an evening when Mayo used 30 different players. 

Monaghan led initially in the opening stages, with Mayo pointing once in the first ten minutes through Conal Dawson. 

McStay’s men then hit 1-3 without reply, with Ryan O’Donoghue converting the goal in the 14th minute. 

Mayo controlled the game until after the time-out in the middle of the first half. Monaghan then blitzed the Mayo defence and saw the impressive Michael Hamill rattle home a decisive goal. 

Trailing 1-11 1-6 at the break, Mayo changed their entire team as a steady fall of sleet made playing conditions difficult. 

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The green and red played a better second half, eventually levelling the game through Louisburgh’s Dylan Prendergast very late on.

Monaghan, however, went back in front through two efforts from Stephen Mooney before surviving numerous stout-hearted Mayo attacks to hold on for a two-point win. 

A full report, plus reaction and columns from Ger Flanagan and Anne Marie Flynn will be carried in Tuesday’s Mayo News.