Clubs query decision not to include key change in 2026 Mayo Championship

IT may only be early in 2026, and the balls, cones, and water bottles may be just now getting dusted down for pre-season to commence, but the Mayo Club Championships are already setting pulses racing across the county.

However, it is doing so for all the wrong reasons.

At the January meeting of the County Board, club delegates moved to question the decision of Mayo GAA not to implement the motion from the 2025 county convention to add a preliminary quarter-final to this year's Senior and Intermediate Championships.

The decision is in relation to Motion Eight from the convention in Knock on Sunday, December 8.

The proposal from Aghamore would have seen second-placed teams in the four groups of the competitions square off against third-placed teams in knockout fare.

The winners would advance to play one of the first-placed sides in the last eight, giving more clubs another game.

At the convention in December there had been strong support for the proposal.

John Farragher of Garrymore voiced his approval, labelling the move as a potential ‘ray of sunshine’.

Shane Quinn, the outgoing chairman of West Mayo, outlined a number of concerns with the proposal, including a situation in Galway where games needed to be played in midweek to combat the congestion caused by the hurling championship.

Ballyhaunis delegate William Nestor also expressed concern with regards to the calendar for dual players.

Parke’s delegate Padraic Carolan said that he had yet to meet a player who disagreed with the motion, adding that the idea of ‘flogging it out’ while an opponent waits in the last eight is even more of an incentive to finish top of the group.

The topic came to the floor once more at the January meeting of the Executive and club delegates on Wednesday, January 28.

Michael Diskin, the county vice-chairman, said that the motion was discussed in a meeting with club chairs, secretaries, and managers.

"There was no appetite for those preliminary quarter-finals," Diskin stated, less than two months after a show of hands indicated a significant majority of those at the County Convention were in favour of Motion Eight.

A number of delegates queried what had changed since the show of hands last month.

Diskin indicated that in the previous meeting with club representatives, that 'not one person favoured that particular motion,’ and that there were concerns that sides would be playing games for three weeks in succession.

When pressed on the issue and asked if there had been a vote taken on the issue at the previous meeting, Diskin stated that those present had no autonomy to make a decision on the matter.

Ronan Kirrane, the secretary, confirmed that the CCC had rejected the motion.

"It was said up there that there was no appetite for it," the Aghamore delegate Cathal Duffy stated. "I haven't heard one thing here to say that there was or there wasn't. We went from no appetite last Monday night for it, to that they had no autonomy on it. Which is it? Don't say there was no appetite for it when that wasn't a fact," he concluded.