Is this the Mayo team to beat Galway?

ONE of the big sporting talking points among Mayo GAA fans at the moment relates to the senior team manager Stephen Rochford and his selectors select to start next Sunday's much-awaited Connacht senior championship quarterfinal against Galway in Elverys McHale Park, Castlebar, at 4 p.m.

Of course no one will know for certain what 15 will start for Mayo until shortly before the throw-in.

This is because both Mayo and Galway managements will be playing a bit of cat and mouse on the lead-up to the game and will not want to be showing their full hand until shortly before the start.

So, whatever teams are announced later in the week we can expect changes to both sides when the two sides line up for the start of the counter

With Mayo having a number of their regulars ruled due to injury it makes it much harder to forecast who will start.

However, the following team might not be far off the mark and it will be interesting to see what others think.

1 David Clarke 

2 Chris Barrett 

3 Ger Cafferkey or Donal Vaughan 

4. Eoin O'Donoghue 

5 Colm Boyle

6 Stephen Coen 

7 Paddy Durcan

8 Tom Parsons 

9 Seamus O'Shea 

10 Kevin McLoughlin 

11 Aidan O'Shea 

12 Diarmuid O'Connor

13 Conor Loftus 

14 Andy Moran 

15 Jason Doherty

One of the big decisions for the management is who will fill the number three jersey and be given the job of marking big Damien Comer.

Will Cafferkey be given one more chance or will Donal Vaughan be slotted in?

We can also expect to see Mayo using a sweeper. This could be left to either Kevin McLoughlin or Vaughan. If Cafferkey is given the green light we could see the likes of O'Connor or Doherty on the bench to make place for Vaughan.

The above team does not include Keith Higgins as he may be playing for the hurlers in the Christy Ring Cup against Wicklow on Saturday and is likely to be on the bench for the football clash the following day.

The other side of things we have come to learn from the Mayo management is that it is included to come up with the unexpected at times when selecting their starting teams. One couldn't rule this out next Sunday.

What do you think will be Mayo's starting 15 next Sunday?