Last year’s beaten finalists Breaffy crashed out of the Mayo SFC over the weekend as the four semi-finalists in this season’s competition were decided.

The eight quarter-finalists in this year’s Mayo senior club football championship were confirmed over the weekend with a lively looking Ballina Stephenites issuing a statement of intent.

“The James O’Donoghue of three and four years ago would just turn around and kick that ball over the bar with his left foot. He’s not playing with the confidence you’d expect. If he was, he’d have chipped that ball over the bar,” said Oisín McConville, 22 minutes into Kerry’s Super 8 rout of Mayo.

It takes a special team to make a team like Mayo look so old, spent, lost.

Dublin are on the brink of history and already have seven SFC wins to their name this summer, and John Fogarty reflects that in his August All-Stars. But how do the other counties fare?

Just once have Dublin failed to score a goal against Mayo and their nine points were still enough to win in a dour

Imagine trying to convince somebody that, after 68 years of trial and epic failure, the prize they crave so badly will never be theirs, always beyond them.

And with that, the Super 8 became the final four with the remaining quartet arguably the best in the country.

In first-half injury time, with Mayo having pushed their advantage over a spluttering Donegal from two points down to six up, Fionn McDonagh hit Donegal’s Jamie Brennan with a ferocious, fair shoulder to win possession right in front of a heaving Gerry McDonald stand.

John O’Mahony and Conor Mortimer have taken issue with the blame apportioned to goalkeeper David Clarke for Mayo’s restart difficulties.

Former Mayo selector Tony McEntee insists tomorrow’s Super 8 decider is not personal for Stephen Rochford - but claims Donegal are in difficulty going to Castlebar.

You could cut the tension with a knife. Everyone was on edge wondering how would the fun-loving, stone-mad GAA fan handle the windswept conditions in Portrush.

Little House on the Prairie is not an obvious starting point for a Super 8s allegory, but of all the virtues required by those who read and write about Mayo football, tolerance of the absurd is paramount, so I urge you to endure.

It is difficult to keep up with everything happening in the championship with so many big games coming so close together.

When Páraic Duffy sat back in his chair and dreamed up the idea of the Super 8s, sun-kissed days like Sunday in Killarney between two evenly matched teams in front of a sell-out crowd must surely have been his wild

For well over an hour before throw-in, local group Celtic Steps, situated on a makeshift stage in front of the main stand, entertained the building crowd with the finest of traditional Irish music.

When I was in charge of Kerry one of the our mantras at different stages was: “Earn the right to play, then play.”

Unlike 12 months ago, Kerry got their Super 8 campaign off to a roaring start with this annihilation of Mayo.

There is huge anticipation throughout the country this morning for the second coming of the Super 8s.

It’s a talent in itself that James Horan can come across as offended even in triumph.

Mayo arrested a seven-game losing run against their neighbours with this wire-to-wire victory that sees them face Kerry in Killarney in their opening Super 8 game tomorrow week.

So far the evidence would suggest Mayo are going down a similar route to 2017 for their qualifier odyssey.

There was no shortage of drama or excitement in Castlebar as the All-Ireland SFC Qualifiers served up a thriller with Mayo doing just enough to book their place in the next round.

Is Shaun Patton best-placed to succeed Stephen Cluxton as the game’s most influential goalkeeper?

In the typical nature of Mayo championship games, there was enough in their five-point win over Down on Saturday night for Mayo manager James Horan to get his teeth into when the post-match analysis starts in earnest.

Mayo got their hunt for a Super 8's place back on track after that messy Roscommon defeat in Connacht, with a typically nerve-shredding win over Down on Saturday night.

Mayo captain Diarmuid O'Connor has missed out on the Mayo team for their Championship opener in New York.

Mayo look set to be without their inspirational captain Diarmuid O’Connor for Sunday’s Connacht SFC quarter-final with New York at Gaelic Park.

Former Mayo captain Cillian O’Connor made his first appearance in almost five months when he lined out for Ballintubber in the first round of the Mayo SFC on Saturday evening.

If Mayo supporters didn’t see their lives of final anguish flashing before their eyes as Stephen O’Brien squared the ball for David Clifford in the first minute of additional time then they are lying.

Last week the PwC All-Star players of the month for July and August were revealed.

These are players to be admired and celebrated, not pitied, says Paul Rouse.

Mayo 1-19 Tipperary 1-11

To describe this great team of Jim Gavin’s, Ciarán Whelan turns to capital sage Jimmy Rabbitte for inspiration.

A new book detailing the 1,600 Gardaí who have played senior inter-county hurling, football and camogie was launched last night in Dublin.

Mayo 0-12 Galway 1-12

It was, without doubt, one of the poorest games of football between these two great rivals in living memory. 

Mayo goalkeeper David Clarke was not unsettled by Cormac Costello interfering with his kicking-tees at the end of last year’s All-Ireland decider, despite sending his final restart out of play.

One of the tactical moves of the year?

Although it wasn’t widely identified as a trend — more reported as a series of unrelated events — an intriguing development in 2017 was the signing by the managers of the country’s top four football teams to stay on until 2020, writes Kieran Shannon.

The irony of Andy Moran’s call on Monday for a 50-yard penalty to punish cynicism late in matches shouldn’t be lost on anybody.

Poor decision making invariably leads to poor results.

Tyrone 2-14 - Mayo 0-8: After what he described as his team’s best performance in years, Tyrone manager Mickey Harte took aim at those who had been critical of Tyrone’s tactical approach this year.

After Kilkenny’s first All-Ireland senior title under Brian Cody in 2000, the strength of his panel was lauded to such an extent that when the Cats cruised through Leinster the following year their second 15 were deemed the next best side in the country.