Alan Mulholland says Mayo are the team to beat in this year's Connacht SFC.

Mulholland's Galway side will host the reigning provincial champions at Pearse Stadium on Sunday, and is in no doubt that it will be a big task to dethrone them.

"Mayo have shown that they are the standard bearers in Connacht for the last couple of years. They were beaten All-Ireland finalists only last year," the Galway manager told gaa.ie

"Their work ethic is fantastic and what James (Horan) has brought to the team is an edge and they have a level of consistency which to be honest we are trying to achieve. They seem to be able to get the same level of performance regardless of when they go out and regardless of what personnel they have in there.

"We are under no illusions that we are the underdogs. The benefit of that is that there isn't much expectation in Galway. I know we had U21 success, but realistically we are looking at this senior panel, the panel that played the league, and the expectation isn't that high in Galway and we are hoping that we can play without pressure, express ourselves a bit and play maybe with a bit of abandon.

"We are looking forward to that, we are relishing the prospect of having the pressure off. Mayo are probably trying to better what they did last year and trying to go on and win an All-Ireland." Tweet

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