Oisín McConvillle: Mayo and Armagh facing real peril in qualifiers

Oisín McConvillle believes that Mayo and Armagh are facing real potential peril in the backdoor arena following their provincial championship defeats against Galway and Donegal respectively.

Mayo's late charge wasn’t enough in Castlebar as Galway held on to win by the minimum in their Connacht quarter-final, while earlier in the day Armagh failed to get anywhere close to the expectations surrounding them as they fell to Donegal in Ulster on a 1-16 to 0-12 scoreline.

The Orchard County in particular have been heavily involved in early qualifier round action under manager Kieran McGeeney, and it has allowed them to build up momentum.

Their first-round opponents during his time in charge have been Wicklow, Laois, Fermanagh and Westmeath with three wins arriving from those encounters. Mayo have been involved in round one action once in the same period, hitting 5-19 against a then Division 4 Limerick in 2018.

However, with the new Tailteann Cup format in play, Mayo and Armagh will have to start their rebuild against Division 1 or 2 opposition, or Louth and Limerick who earned promotion from the third tier in 2022.

"I just hope that’s not the draw, Armagh versus Mayo. I don’t think either team will want that," said the two-time Orchard All-Star.

"There are no easy games now. There’s only a couple of rounds of qualifiers altogether so there is an opportunity to get back in to this championship.

"They obviously have five or six weeks now to get their heads around the defeat and try and work on what has gone wrong.

"There’s a chance to get going again but it’s very unforgiving because you’re going to be coming up against top class opponents.

"I suppose a lot of people would have questioned the quality of Division 2 but I think Galway