Kerry withstood a dramatic late Mayo rally to snatch their third league win of the season and keep their hopes of a shot at the Division 1 league title alive at MacHale Park in Castlebar earlier today.

Depending on what route you take, it’s a journey of about four hours from John Evans’ native Killorglin to Aughrim, Wicklow GAA’s county ground.

Our writers look ahead to the major talking points ahead of the weekend's action at GAA Congress and in the Allianz Leagues.

Mayo GAA have cut off all official ties with benefactor Tim O’Leary after he appeared to call for James Horan to be removed in a tweet.

A combination of their first three Allianz League performances was what Monaghan manager Seamus McEnaney wanted against Mayo yesterday in Clones. He got that and more.

A strong second-half display from Monaghan saw them finish pulling up against a 13-man Mayo in St Tiernach’s Park, Clones, this afternoon.

The Allianz League title holders ground out a one-point win over Meath having trailed by that same margin with 68 minutes on the clock.

Our writers look ahead to the major talking points ahead of the weekend's Allianz League action.

John Fogarty and Eoghan Cormican preview the weekend's GAA fixtures.

Having opened with a draw against Donegal, James Horan’s side lost at home to Dublin last Saturday night. James McCormack comes into the team at full-back as they seek a first win

Forewarned they were, but Mayo were powerless to prevent yet another third-quarter burst extending the county’s miserable run against Dublin.

Dublin this evening extended their unbeaten run against Mayo to 16 games.

John Fogarty and Eoghan Cormican preview the weekend's GAA fixtures.

At this stage, it’s probably a rite of passage for one of Philly McMahon, James McCarthy, Ciarán Kilkenny, Kevin McManamon, or Paddy Andrews to haze new recruits with tales of the bad old days.

Long after the final whistle and Donegal boss, Declan Bonner, was trying to process how his side were caught on the line in Saturday night's Allianz League opener in Ballybofey.

Kilkenny full-back Huw Lawlor wants to see his side get their NHL campaign off to a winning start against Dublin this weekend.

For the second year in a row, penalties were required to separate these age-old rivals in the FBD Connacht League and history also repeated itself in terms of the outcome as Galway edged past their neighbours on a bitterly cold day in Castlebar.

Mayo defender Eoin O’Donoghue is confident county colleague and close pal Matthew Ruane isn’t interested in a switch to Aussie Rules.

McDonald will work closely with coach James Burke to "support the development of the players in a football context".

It’s a long way from the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa to Tuam Stadium in the heartland of North Galway, especially if you go via The Twickenham Stoop, the Vélez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires, and a few laps of MacHale Park in Castlebar, but Gavin Duffy has played in them all, and in doing so, has rather silently compiled one the most compelling sporting CV’s of any Irish man or woman these last two decades.

Players from 16 counties are included on the Underdogs panel.

The legend goes that, upon his release from 27 years imprisonment, the first words Nelson Mandela uttered as he shielded his eyes from the hot South African sun were “Is Martin Carney still playing for Mayo?”

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

So Mayo poked the bear, and the bear reacted by consuming them whole. In eight blistering minutes after the interval, Dublin turned a two-point deficit into and an eight-point lead.

So that’s Sunday nearly wrapped up. Here’s some of the stories we published on irishexaminer.com today which we hope will help you make sense of it all this evening.

If you weren’t glorifying, you were gulping.

Mayo manager James Horan had already conceded the fact that his side handled Dublin’s third quarter power surge very poorly when the subject of fatigue was mentioned.

That after the event, James Horan didn’t appear exasperated by the persistent line of questioning regarding the catastrophic opening 12 minutes of the second half for Mayo suggests he too believes their All-Ireland semi-final hopes foundered in that period.

It was the morning after that always gave it away that Paul Flynn had been involved in a championship game against Mayo.

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

Fitzmaurice believes Jim Gavin’s Dublin side are the best team he has ever seen at adapting to tactical challenges and fixing problems at half-time.

The Dubliner who managed Mayo players Lee Keegan and Fionn McDonagh to All-Ireland club glory believes Mayo can halt the drive for five on Saturday.

Mayo are hardly Dublin’s bogey team but in the eyes of many of the capital’s supporters they are bogeymen. They are the team they warn their children about. Condemned to death only to rise and haunt opponents again and again.

Familiarity breeds contempt. Really? Does extensive knowledge of someone lead to a loss of respect for them? Not this weekend.

Conal Keaney has predicted that Mayo will attempt to draw Dublin into a battle at Croke Park and then hope that Jim Gavin’s side ‘fall apart’ in the final 10 minutes.

Getting the match-ups right has gone a long way for Kerry and Mayo in recent years. We think of Aidan O’Mahony on Michael Murphy in the 2014 final, Lee Keegan on Enda Smith in the 2017 All-Ireland quarter-final replay and just last weekend Patrick Durcan tagging Ryan McHugh.

Two key members of past Mayo football management teams have painted a revealing portrait of a ‘phenomenal’ group of men whose crucial attributes are their ordinariness and thirst for information.

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.

The group-deciding Super 8 encounter this evening in Castlebar has the potential to be explosive, a real old-style knockout championship game. There is no love lost between Mayo and Donegal dating back to the now infamous challenge game in 2012 and there are a lot of ifs, buts, and maybes making it a hard game to call.

MacHale Park provides few home comforts for Mayo in competitive football, as the accompanying statistics establish.