This is going to be a long week.

It always is when you’re waiting for a big match, especially one that has been circled on the calendar for the last five months.

Sunday, April 26th: Mayo against the Rossies. Andy against the Rossies. And Mayo installed as raging hot favourites to exact revenge for 2023. Failure is not an option.

There are two straightforward scenarios to be considered ahead of Sunday.

Mayo win and set up another Connacht Final against Galway (barring an unlikely Leitrim win on Saturday) in a few weeks’ time, guaranteeing themselves a place on the ‘right side’ of the new All-Ireland series format.

Or Mayo lose and they are at the mercy of the draw for the next phase of the championship, with the prospect of playing the best teams in the country much earlier in the summer.

The latter prospect doesn’t really bear thinking about at the moment. So let’s focus on the positives.

By all accounts, Mayo’s four-day training camp in London went really well. There was plenty of productive work done, including tactical training, performance coaching,  skills sessions, and team bonding.

The actual game against London was a means to an end, a hurdle to be jumped without making any headlines for any wrong reasons. The fact that nobody picked up any injuries was, arguably, the biggest positive for Andy Moran and company. That fact tells its own story.

And while Mayo were kicking two-pointers to beat the band in that first half in Ruislip, the Roscommon lads were watching them do it from their base in New Jersey.

Oh to be a fly on the team room wall when Mark Dowd and their coach, Jason Sherlock, were watching London carve open Mayo’s defence for that goal that seemed so preventable. Diarmuid Murtagh’s eyes must have lit up too.

A day later the Rossies were taking care of business themselves in Gaelic Park, trying to tick the same sort of boxes and stay out of trouble. Unfortunately for them, Daire Cregg ended up on the wrong end of a red card and is now waiting to see if it will be overturned on appeal this week.

Assuming it is, Roscommon will be as close to full strength as makes no difference on Sunday. They will come to Castlebar fully locked and loaded.

If Cregg’s appeal is unsuccessful, then Mark Dowd’s game-plan will have to be revised and their attack will be without one of the best forwards in the country this season. So you can be sure that Roscommon will go all the way to try and see that justice is done.

Picking Mayo’s starting XV is easier said than done, especially with Conor Loftus, Enda Hession and Donnacha McHugh all back in training and pushing hard. Throw in Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne, who look set to be togged next weekend, and all of a sudden the match-day squad looks a lot more competitive too.

Will Andy stick or twist with the likes of Michael Plunkett or bring back Loftus and Hession to bolster the defence? (Remember they haven’t played competitively since March 1st).

Is McHugh the man for Enda Smith? (Lahardane’s Matthew Queenan did a mighty job on him for New York).

Is springing Kobe for the last 20 minutes the best way to go? Or is Sunday the day to start him and be done with it?

These questions and a whole lot more will be answered by 6pm on Sunday.

We have now reached that point of the season where winning is everything, and getting the result against the Rossies is the bottom line. Talk of Connacht titles and stopping Galway doing five-in-a-row is for another day.

This week is all about Sunday.