Hyde Park should be fine to host Mayo game

Daniel Carey

MAYO’S penultimate game in the National Football League looks set to go ahead in Hyde Park, Roscommon, according to a top GAA official.
Connacht Council secretary John Prenty told The Mayo News last night (Monday) that the game would more than likely proceed in the Hyde on Easter Sunday, March 27, as scheduled.
Noting that the weather had ‘picked up a fair bit’, the Ballyhaunis man said the chances of the match being played in Roscommon town were now ‘60/40 minimum’.
Rumours circulated at last Sunday’s Mayo-Kerry game in Castlebar that the Roscommon match might end up in MacHale Park, but Prenty said such an eventuality was ‘highly unlikely’.
The Connacht Council official explained that the issue which led to Roscommon’s meeting with Down being moved from Hyde Park was ‘the condition of the pitch’, adding: “It needed a few fine days. They have done remedial work on it, but it just didn’t have an opportunity to dry out.”
With Hyde Park unplayable, Roscommon had sought to move the Down game to Kiltoom. But the Central Competitions Control Committee (of which Prenty is a member) deemed the home of St Brigid’s GAA Club unsuitable based on the expected attendance, and thus the match ended up in Pearse Park, Longford.
Prenty confirmed that there was ‘not a hope’ that Kiltoom could accommodate the numbers expected to attend the visit of Mayo, which would be expected to top 10,000.
“I think the Hyde will be fine,” said Prenty. “The biggest issue was just getting the grass cut.”
Meanwhile, despite spending 17 consecutive seasons in Division 1 of the National Football League, Mayo have been installed as 4/6 favourites to be relegated from the top flight next month. Last Sunday’s defeat to Kerry — Mayo’s fourth in five games — has seen bookmakers slash the odds on the Connacht champions dropping down to Division 2.
Stephen Rochford’s team are away to Roscommon on Sunday week, before concluding their league programme at home to Down in Castlebar on April 3.
Mayo are understood to have picked up no new significant injuries last Sunday but it is still unclear whether Kevin Keane (knee), Keith Higgins (hamstring) or Cillian O’Connor (knee) will feature against Roscommon.