Roscommon GAA Discussion Thread

Green Peter

Well done Roscommon from a Galway man, the better team. Galway need to axe about 6 players

Kristopherus

Well done, Rossies. Better team all through. Excellent reply to last year's replay.

Diabhal Beag

Congrats lads. Much the better side. Enjoy the night.

Lt Dan

Typical, went to every Connacht Final & Replay that Rosommon has been involved in since 1990 (only in small shorts then) ,went to both last year and thought , never again (we all say that though, all those hard days ,2011 was a tough one to swallow, never mind the trashings in 1999 et all) Miss today, didn't think we had a chance, raging in missing it now, but Jesus like all of ye, over joyed. Great weekend for Roscommon Football

blazermel

Couldn't be prouder today. Played with absolute heart and determination and never gave up the fight. Those players deserve to celebrate well tonight!

TheRiverman

Well done Roscommon from an Offaly man with strong Ros connections.Any chance of getting Kevin Mcstay across the Shannon sometime in the future?:)

ProudDUB

Well done Rossies.

Quarter finals now.

Ya can't bate that walk up Clonliffe Rd on a balmy day in August.

(Well, ya can...doing it in September, but let's not go there just yet.)

Syferus

We are ROS

Eyes Down Field

Fantastic results for Roscommon. Delighted I went to this game today. They were brilliant, everyone on the team was on top form and they dominated the game from the beginning to end. Credit to the players and to Kevin McStay. Great day for Roscommon.

pjmn

Didn't see that performance in them, what a pleasure to be in Pearse Stadium today and be the lone Rossie in among a large Galway contingent.... great craic

jam83

A Galway man here and have to say Galway were out thought and out fought today. Roscommon kicked some great scores, and deserved to win by about 16 points I thought leaving it.
I'm delighted for Kevin mcstay. Seems like a good guy.

Ballstein

What's that Gay Sheerin said again?

megadodge

WWWWWOOOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!

THAT WAS F*CKING BRILLIANT!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!

What a fantastic performance. Every single player can be proud of his contribution, as can the management especially with the various matchups which all seemed to work. That was right up there with Tuam 2001 as my favourite ever Roscommon perfomance.

I know it's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason and that's HUNGER. I don't think I've ever witnessed a hungrier Roscommon team. One of my gripes for the last 20 years is Roscommon's inability to win breaking ball and a lot of that is down to pure hunger. The player who is prepared to put his body on the line in that split second to win the ball knowing he's going to get hit is the type of player that wins breaking balls and Roscommon had players all over the pitch willing to do whatever it took for their team. It was brilliant to witness.

I don't really want to single out anyone as everybody played so well, but Enda Smith was absolutely sensational. That was leadership at it's best in an area where everyobdy (including myself) thought we were going to get wiped in.

It's days like this that makes everything worthwhile.

UP THE ROSSIES!!!!!!!

rossie1977

Most impressive thing about todays win is the age of the starting 15. 11 are 24 or under

Lavin 23
Murray 23
McManus 24
Mcinerney 23
Mullooly 21
O'rourke 21
Enda smith 22
Brian stack 20
Connolly 24
C murtagh 24
D murtagh 22

Eyes Down Field

Ballstein wrote:

What's that Gay Sheerin said again?

I think Sheeran said McStay couldn't manage Roscommon effectively Because he was from Mayo.

Absolute bollox.

rossie1977 wrote:

Most impressive thing about todays win is the age of the starting 15. 11 are 24 or under

A young team with great potential, If they continue to progress and get better, who knows what they could achieve.

Comic Book Guy

What a day. I will readily admit I didn't see that coming. I thought we had the inside forwards to do damage but my main concern was the around the middle third and the physicality stakes. But as was previously said I never seen us bring such intensity and discipline in the tackle.
Serious displays all over the pitch. Enda Smith was an inspiration all game. Is there a more improved footballer in the panel than Niall Kilroy? The amount of work he got thru today was savage. Fair play to Kevin, he was on a sticky wicket in the eyes of some but always spoke about patience and the talent and hunger the panel had and boy can he feel vindicated tonight.

Following on from nerve gangling wins as a supporter in 90 91 01 10 it was great to just enjoy the glow of victory 10 mins before the final whistle!

I was also 50:50 about bringing my 5 year old son for his first Rossie game given the venue and the crowd but he persevered and boy am I glad he did. Was great to see his face as we were up the front for trophy presentation. Now to tell him that every day isn't like this!!!!

TCDStudent1

the desire shown by Roscommon was fantastic to see. It's wonderful to see such hunger in a team.

At the final whistle, your physio went straight to your number 7. She was obviously very concerned about him and got him to sit on a chair in the sideline. A supporter was going onto the pitch and gave him a congratulatory pat on the back. He had a bottle of water which the physio took off him because she wanted to give it to the player! Looked like the player was just completely out on his feet. Wonderful to see a player giving his all like that.

As much as I'm disappointed with Galways defeat (and it was crushing), it's nice to see a competitive Connacht again.

Syferus

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

the desire shown by Roscommon was fantastic to see. It's wonderful to see such hunger in a team.

At the final whistle, your physio went straight to your number 7. She was obviously very concerned about him and got him to sit on a chair in the sideline. A supporter was going onto the pitch and gave him a congratulatory pat on the back. He had a bottle of water which the physio took off him because she wanted to give it to the player! Looked like the player was just completely out on his feet. Wonderful to see a player giving his all like that.

As much as I'm disappointed with Galways defeat (and it was crushing), it's nice to see a competitive Connacht again.

Devanney was the best player bar Enda Smith on the field. He's been such a leader for us the past two years. He deserves every accolade going.

Syferus

Syferus

Lt Dan

Syferus, are those your photos? You took them? Savage, look really really professional . Some great treasures to keep.

jmayo

Congratulations on a great win and in some style as well.

Syferus

Lt Dan wrote: »

Syferus, are those your photos? You took them? Savage, look really really professional . Some great treasures to keep.

Yeah, I've a Canon 600D DSLR I bring to most matches I go to, with a telescopic lense so I can zoom in a bit.

Shurimgreat

Roscommon are fortunate to have the McStay/McHale combination. I have no doubt they would deliver at least one AI for Mayo if we got them, as their tactics and preparation generally are second to none. The back-door didn't suit them last year and they were probably tired. Looks like they focused on the championship this year and the league was an afterthought, which is refreshing to see. No-one remembers league campaigns after a couple of years, but a successful championship lives in the memory forever.

manofwisdom

When you consider the difficult playing conditions the first goal and some of the point scoring by both teams yesterday was as good as i have ever seen. The margin of victory a big shock but the rossies were full value for it. Always great to see top underage players performing at their best at senior level and in Enda Smith and Diarmuid Murtagh for example are as good as any young players in the country. Well done Roscommon enjoy the celebrations and go on now and win a long over due championship game in Croke park.

Lt Dan

manofwisdom wrote: »

When you consider the difficult playing conditions the first goal and some of the point scoring by both teams yesterday was as good as i have ever seen. The margin of victory a big shock but the rossies were full value for it. Always great to see top underage players performing at their best at senior level and in Enda Smith and Diarmuid Murtagh for example are as good as any young players in the country. Well done Roscommon enjoy the celebrations and go on now and win a long over due championship game in Croke park.

Hope they don't enjoy the celebrations too much, remember 2001 celebrations?

Pique

Naked pool. (shudder)

We were a right laughing stock after that.

rossie1977

Eyes Down Field wrote: »

A young team with great potential, If they continue to progress and get better, who knows what they could achieve.

It is but staying together (and fit) is key and something that Roscommon teams simply haven't been able to do last decade. Of the 19 players that either started or came on a sub in the 2010 Connacht final win only one Sean McDermott played in this years victory. Its more jarring when you consider that 6 of those starters (and 3 of the subs) are still not even 30.

By comparison eight of Sligos panel that day either started or came on against mayo in this years Connacht championship. Speaking of mayo, 7 of the players that started for them that year in the defeat to Sligo started Saturday night in Clare and Parsons who started in Sligo came on as sub Saturday night while Aiden o Shea came on as sub against Sligo in 2010.

You don't need to even go back that far. In 2014 Roscommon came within a whisker of beating mayo yet just 2 of that starting 15 started yesterday. 10 of the mayo starting 15 that day started against Clare

Syferus

rossie1977 wrote: »

It is but staying together (and fit) is key and something that Roscommon teams simply haven't been able to do last decade. Of the 19 players that either started or came on a sub in the 2010 Connacht final win only one Sean McDermott played in this years victory. Its more jarring when you consider that 6 of those starters (and 3 of the subs) are still not even 30.

By comparison eight of Sligos panel that day either started or came on against mayo in this years Connacht championship. Speaking of mayo, 7 of the players that started for them that year in the defeat to Sligo started Saturday night in Clare and Parsons who started in Sligo came on as sub Saturday night while Aiden o Shea came on as sub against Sligo in 2010.

You don't need to even go back that far. In 2014 Roscommon came within a whisker of beating mayo yet just 2 of that starting 15 started yesterday. 10 of the mayo starting 15 that day started against Clare

By design that has happened in a lot cases this season. This year's panel is factually better than last year's now, by the way.

These are the players who were committed to the project so keeping them together will be a lot easier than keeping last year's panel together, which has proven itself to have been the wrong approach to take in spectacular fashion.

aidan24326

Eyes Down Field wrote: »

I think Sheeran said McStay couldn't manage Roscommon effectively Because he was from Mayo.

Absolute bollox.

Bollox indeed. In Galway we didn't complain about having a Mayo man at the helm when we won All-Irelands in the not too distant past. It was silly stuff but Kevin McStay and his backroom team are rightly vindicated after this.

It was a great performance from Roscommon and they clearly believed right from the first minute that they could win this game, they showed Galway no respect and they were right to do so, as this Galway team, while not as bad as they looked yesterday, are obviously over-rated.

Well done to Roscommon but it will be interesting to see how they perform the next day as needless to say it won't be that easy again. Hard to know what to make of our lads, no heart no fight, it was depressing stuff. But as an earlier poster said it's good to see Connaught competitive again after a few years of Mayo dominance.