James Horan believes his Mayo side will have it all to do if they are to make a winning start to their NFL campaign against Laois in O'Moore Park on Saturday night.

Horan, who is hoping to steer the Connacht champions to a top-four finish and place in the semi-finals, is under no illusions about the task facing his team against a Laois side which hammered Wexford in the O'Byrne Shield final last Sunday.

"It's going to be an absolute battle up in Laois, no doubt about that," he said after Mayo retained the FBD League title with a comfortable win over NUI, Galway last Friday.

"They got promoted to Division 1 last year and they're really going to be gunning for us. But we'll just prepare as well as we can. We had a very good (training) session on Sunday morning so we're looking forward to it."

The former two-time All Star forward will wait until after training tomorrow night before naming his team.

"You could pick up a number of injuries between now and then so it's very hard at this stage to pick a team," he added.

"But there are a lot of guys showing well so there are a lot of guys in contention. Whoever is doing their stuff in training is getting on on match day. We want to get a spine of a team together as early in the year as we can. And build on that, brick by brick." Tweet

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