Last night, the early fates of the sides involved in both codes of the All Ireland championships were settled as the draw was made for the 2018 provincials.

For All Ireland football runners up Mayo, they will face a Galway side that beat them at the Connacht semi final stage in each of the last two years, albeit this time at the earlier phase of a quarter final.

Mayo's Stephen Coen attended the Championship draw and our own Oisin Langan caught up with him to get his thoughts on it as well as the prospect of the Super 8s next year.

"Every year we're trying to improve on the previous year," he said of a Mayo team that have been getting close to All Ireland glory but just being pipped to the post by Dublin.

"Look, we felt we might have done that a bit more this year. The plan was to win the Connacht championship and go that way but that didn't happen so we had to adapt and look as the playoffs in the backdoor went on, we got better and better and just unfortunately fell short in the end but look, Dublin were a great team and deserved winners."

Of course, this year the Super 8s come in and Mayo's quality means they are more than likely to be involved in that stage of the post-provincial championship.  

"Ah sure, why not, we'll have to see how it goes," Coen said of potential involvement.

"It's more games for spectators, it's more enjoyable for people to go and it's nice to have a home game at that time of the year and an away game and in Croke Park as well. I think  that's the format, I think that's how it goes. Look, it'll be interesting and time will tell how it goes." 

Backing Mayo manager Stephen Rochford, he also said "we had never any doubt in Stephen" during his tenure.