Finian Hanley is hoping home advantage will count for something when Galway welcome Mayo to Pearse Stadium for their Connacht SFC semi-final on June 14.

"They've been at the top for the last four or five years, in Connacht and in Ireland," the full back said of the four-in-a-row provincial champions on RTE after Galway's win over Leitrim.

"They've been up there with the Kerrys, Dublins and Donegals. We know what's facing us. It's in Pearse Stadium, which hopefully will help, but we've a lot of work to do in the next four weeks to bring it on and get up to their level.

"We just want to be competitive and we think if we're competitive it'll be very close."

The Ireland International Rules star accepts that Galway will be underdogs against their age old rivals.

"Yes [they will be favourites], and rightly so," he continued.

"They're the team that's been on top for the last four or five years. But at the start of this year we set out that in every game we'd be competitive.

"We lost some in the league but we were still very competitive, we only lost by one or two points in most of the games. Whether we win or lose we want to be in the game right to the end.

"That'll be the plan in four weeks' time and hopefully that'll be enough to rattle them."

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