Sam Callinan believes Mayo aren’t far away from challenging for the Sam Maguire.

The Westerners’ failure to feature at the business end of the All-Ireland SFC in recent years would suggest that they’ve slipped back, but Callinan argues differently.

"The last two years we've come up a bit short," the UCD defender told RTÉ at the launch of the Electric Ireland Higher Education Sigerson Cup.

"While it is frustrating, this year we're taking a lot of hope and optimism out of the fact that we were right there. It was a kick of a ball against Galway, drew with Dublin, if things went our way against Derry, who knows what could have happened.

"While we didn't perform in the last few minutes of those games, we are there or thereabouts and that's where we're drawing a lot of our hope and optimism from this year that we can compete, and maybe with a few tweaks we'll be right there in the mix.

"It's a theme across the country that there's a changing of the guard. Look at Dublin, a lot of the stalwarts are stepping away now. With the implementation of the new rules, it's as wide open as ever. A few of the new lads that have joined our panel this year are really fantastic players.”

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