Mayo will look to draw on comforts of Clones

The Mayo senior footballers will visit St Tiernach’s Park in Clones for the second time this season having been drawn to play Monaghan in the opening round of this year’s All-Ireland SFC.

The draw was held in Croke Park on Monday after the lineup for this season’s provincial finals was confirmed last weekend.

The eight finalists were included in one pot and each drawn at home against one of the next seven highest-ranked teams according to the 2026 National Football League standings and Kildare, the 2025 Tailteann Cup winners.

Mayo, who missed out on a place in next Sunday’s Connacht SFC final following a demoralising home defeat against Roscommon, will play a Monaghan side that won a dramatic Ulster SFC semi-final against Derry last Saturday. Monaghan will have the home advantage of Clones for their provincial final showdown against Armagh on Sunday, May 17 and regardless of the result, will welcome Mayo to the same venue on the weekend of May 30/31.

While it will be just the second time the counties have played each other in senior championship football, with Mayo winning a first round All-Ireland Championship Qualifier at MacHale Park in 2022 by four points, the Green and Red do have an excellent record against the Farney County at St Tiernach’s Park, winning five out of their last six National Football League games there since 2016. In fact, of the 10 times in the past 30 years that Mayo have played Monaghan away in the league, their only defeats came in 2011 (in Inniskeen) and 2020 (in Clones), with all other eight games won by Mayo, including this year by a whopping 19 points.

But Monaghan have steadied the ship after their seven straight defeats (and a -67 scoring difference) saw them relegated from Division 1. They overcame neighbouring Cavan by seven points in the Ulster SFC quarter-final before last-gasp heroics, in normal time by Jack McCarron, and extra-time by goalkeeper Rory Beggan, saw them dump Derry out of the competition last weekend.

Intriguingly, Mayo manager Andy Moran is particularly familiar with the Monaghan players and management as he spent last season as coach and selector to Gabriel Bannigan’s team. They reached the All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals where they led Donegal by seven points at half-time before eventually losing by six.

Moran brought his Mayo side to Clones on February 22 this year, a game memorable for the goal and four points scored by 18-year-old Kobe McDonald when introduced off the bench for his senior Mayo debut. But 12 of the players who started for Mayo in that 2-30 to 2-11 win also started the 10 points championship defeat to Roscommon last Sunday week.

The eight first round winners in this new-look All-Ireland SFC format will be drawn against each other in Round 2A, and the winners of those four games will progress directly to the quarter-finals. The eight first round losers are paired off in Round 2B. The winners of those four matches will then face a Round 2A loser and those four winners will complete the quarter-final line-up.

Of interest will be if Mayo’s players are released to their clubs to play in next weekend’s third round of the Mayo Senior Football League.

All-Ireland SFC Round 1: Cork v Meath, Kerry v Donegal, Galway v Kildare, Roscommon v Tyrone (all games on May 23/24), Monaghan v Mayo, Dublin v Louth, Westmeath v Cavan, Armagh v Derry (all games on May 30/31).