Late flourish enough for Mayo

Mayo 2-14 Sligo 0-11: Anybody searching for definitive signs that this might be Mayo’s year would have left MacHale Park sorely disappointed yesterday afternoon.

The perennial All-Ireland contenders did what they had to do to engineer a way past the stubborn challenge presented by Sligo, but last year’s beaten finalists were unable to hit too many high notes in the process.

In fact, with ten minutes to go in this largely lacklustre Connacht quarter-final, the natives in the crowd of 14,661 were getting increasingly restless as Sligo eased to within three points of their high- profile hosts.