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The action gets going in the 2019 championship this coming Sunday, with two Connacht championship fixtures being contested that day on foreign fields

This year's National Football League campaign was a hugely successful one for Mayo, yielding the county's first national title for eighteen years while at the same time providing valuable match experience to a host of new players

This year's National Football League campaign reached a thrilling conclusion for Mayo at Croke Park yesterday. Trailing by four points at the break in yesterday's Division One decider they stormed back into it in the second half, sweeping Kerry aside to win by four at the finish.

Experimenting with new players while retaining our Division One status was widely accepted to be James Horan's brief for his first National League campaign back as Mayo manager

Things needed to go right for Mayo yesterday both at MacHale Park and up in Healy Park if the county's hopes of making it to this year's National Football League final were to be realised

The wind blew hard and the rain came down in torrents at Austin Stack Park in Tralee but Mayo, taking the field in their distinctive new blue away strip, were equal to the conditions not to mention the challenge laid down by high-flying Kerry

Memories of the bright start Mayo made to this year's League campaign are starting to fade quickly, with those three opening wins now followed by back-to-back Division One defeats

Mayo were back at Croke Park on Saturday night for the first time since the 2017 All-Ireland final but it proved to be an unhappy return

Mayo's early season form continued its positive trend on Saturday night where victory over Cavan made it three League wins from three outings.

Mayo supporters become accustomed in recent years to enduring tough National League campaigns, where wins invariably prove to be hard-fought ones

The wind blew with considerable venom across MacHale Park yesterday evening, where sheets of driving rain and a biting cold added to difficult playing conditions

After months of waiting for the return of competitive action at inter-county level, the 2019 National Football League is set to get underway this coming weekend.