Roscommon GAA Discussion Thread

With everyone beating everyone else, we need one point from remaining 8 on offer to be safe. Relegation is going to be like quick sand this year, anyone less that 7 can be dragged in and it'll go to the last day as everyone else apart from us is still looking for consistent results.

Still mighty to he on top.

Are monaghan coming good all of a sudden or are donegal that bad. Well know more this time next week.

At the moment looks like kerry and donegal for the drop, with ourselves and mayo setting the pace.

Tough day at the office today.

We weren't that bad over all, but Monaghan were a little better in several areas. As before, shot selection and execution in the first half was poor, and one team you don't want to be trailing to is Monaghan. We created a few goal chances in the second half but came up short of the goal we needed all along.

We looked leggy in places, Doyle and Enda struggled as did Cregg when he came on. We found it harder to get space up front and imho didn't get a fair shake from the officials either.

Kot a disaster, we competed all through, hopefully some lessons learned. Whole division very tight.

He is regarded as quiet polarised. I think many of us felt he failed to get Roscommon best 15 on the field as a few fell out with him. His first year, joint with Fergal was roller coaster. Remember we lost to monaghan in kiltoom and then went on a spree of impressive wins. But it was all undone against kerry in a league semi final that the panel never recovered from and we went out of championship after being hammered by Galway in castlebar and then defeat to padge Collins managed clare, who were looking for a scalp. Another championship low for Roscommon after the collapse to Fermanagh the year before under John Evans.

A scatter of better players left the panel after that. So did Fergal. In fairness to mcstay he steadied ship, had a horrendous league, relegated. Many wanted him gone at this stage. But players wanted him and board backed him. But then shocked Galway in pearse stadium with a stunning performance of attacking football. We'd best croke park championship performance against the old enemy Mayo then, only to get hammered by Mayo following week. So a bad taste left after our best summer in years.

His final year saw another division 2 title IIRC, a very decent connacht championship performance combined with Roscommon first qualifier win after a connacht final loss v armagh in armagh in arguably game of the season. But then we had another championship collapse in first year of super 8s. In fairness we were in a desperately unlucky group with Dublin, Donegal (who were still very good then) and a coming Tyrone. The other group was more our level with Galway, meath and Kildare, with kerry the stand out team.

His fans will laud his teams played lovely attacking football. When we were good, we were great. He developed many of the good u20/21 Roscommon players into senior team regulars. He was unlucky with super 8 group we ended up in. He was starting from a bad place after the dream team management failed - Fergal oD is a God in roscommon football.

His critic's will say he failed to get our best 15 with him. There was a real excitement about Roscommon around that time, if we could gel the best of the Evans team with the fantastic u21 teams that were just coming on the scene.

He never got our defence sorted. The team were lovely footballers and showed moments of brilliance. But ultimately not consistently good enough to be genuine top 4 team. Too many times we weren't even competitive.

His best work has been at club level. He brought an ordinary enough Roscommon Gael team through a Roscommon club championship in 2004. He brought Brigids to promised land with all Ireland glory, where he really got the full clubs resources and players going in right direction.

He's a good manager. If he's a bit of luck at all, he'll land Mayo that elusive all Ireland.

Don't know what to make of that game yesterday.

Both teams seemed to be playing a phoney war for various parts of the game. Roscommon were terrible for the first 20 minutes and gradually improved. Mayo did what they had to do without facing much resistence early on. They got very sloppy in the second half when under a little pressure and very nearly let Roscommon win a game that would not have been deserved.

Lavin definitely played himself off the championship team with a very poor display. His kickouts were as SLOW as ever. He never backed himself to pick out some obviously free men and then had to go long, often kicking the ball towards more Mayo players than Roscommon. Between his poor kicking and the stupid goal I reckon Roscommon coughed up 1-5 that was totally preventable. Not the sort of stuff you can afford to do to beat a top team.

Having said that, the fact that Roscommon kept going and nearly pulled it out at the end is a very positive thing. It's something they were not renowned for, but this league they have finished all their games well. They just need to sort out the lethargic first halves.

It 99.999% certain we'll stay up after today's results.

There's three games that decide that next weekend. Donegal v us. Monaghan v mayo and Tyrone v Armagh.

Donegal are gone immediately today, they can only catch armagh in 6th spot but lose out on H2H. So their goose is cooked.

Monaghan must beat Mayo to stay in the race. They have a - 16 scoring difference. So they either beat Mayo well, hope donegal beat us well or some combination that makes up 18 points.

So assuming donegal beat us and Monaghan win. In the other game, winner take all. Armagh win, lowest scoring difference between Tyrone, Roscommon and Monaghan (17 points behind). Goes down. Armagh draw, lowest scoring difference of roscommon, Armagh and Monaghan gone. Likely monaghan again. Tyrone win. Armagh gone.

So three results would not only have to go against us, we have to get destroyed by Donegal to be relegated. And Donegal are still gone anyway.

I see every reason we'll play like we did in last 6 games and beat Donegal

That point about the warmup was exactly what I was thinking. Is it too hard, where the players are overexerted, or is it too casual and light? Either way, it needs fixing.

Also, once Roscommon started pushing up on the kickouts late in the game, they won almost every one of them. This should be a tactic adopted throughout, similar to Kerry and Mayo, both of whom make short kickouts very difficult. Once Doyle is playing we compete well on the long kickouts. Speaking of which, I wonder why Doyle wasn't started. He was brought on quite quickly, but at that stage Roscommon had lost every kickout and were 6 points down. While he isn't having the spectacular year he had last year when coming on as a sub, once he's on the field the opposition tend not to win too many of the long kickouts consistently. Doyle's ability to compete in the air is vital to Roscommon.

Great win at the weekend. Relegation put to bed in style and even did enough to reach league final if other results went our way. 7 competitive games under our belt. A very good league.

So based on yesterdays performance, whats the thoughts on Mayo for Sunday.

I wouldn’t be paying any heed to that Fella and few people in Mayo would either. He has a habit of shooting his mouth off and coming out with awful shite.

In their last 7 championship games, Galway have won 4.

As both teams appeared to show on Sunday, the league doesn't come close to championship in importance.

What I should have said is that Mayo tend to struggle with Galway at the best of times. It's very rare they have a comfortable day with them.

U20s lost tonight to Sligo and it was kind of frustrating watching it.

They seemed afflicted with the slow starting that the seniors have been guilty of and went 10-1 down towards the end of the first half. Sligo were by far the better side and well worth their lead, but Roscommon really seemed devoid of ideas.

They got a late point and goal to leave it a manageable 5 points at half-time.

Roscommon were much improved in the second half and though Sligo hung on to win by four points, you just got the feeling that Roscommon really were capable of more. Mind you I thought Sligo looked a decent side, but from Roscommon's point of view I'd say there will be regrets.

Sorry for cross posting but I’ve two spare OAP/Student tickets for the match Sunday. Will sell both for 30 Euro. I can send the PDFs of the tickets digitally if it suits better.

They’re general admission so you can sit anywhere but the allocated seating in the stand. Never had any issues using the student ticket the times I’ve been stuck and I look like a grizzled veteran.. anyways, give me a bell if interested.

Well, that was just delightful.

Massive effort and performance from the team.

You called it…….

WWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Having missed 2019, this is the very first time I've gone to Castlebar for a senior game and watched Roscommon beat Mayo (was there in 2010 v Sligo and the draw in 1991). So, forgive me if I'm ecstatic. Even in 1986 I was at Connacht athletics championships in Manorhamilton sitting around the long jump pit with a group of Clann na Gael lads listening to the match on a boom box.

Over the years quite a lot of those losses were hammerings, where I'd be saying to myself coming out "Never again", but inevitably I'd be back next time, wondering why I didn't keep my promise.

As I said in my earlier post, belief was the key. And with belief comes discipline. And Roscommon's discipline was outstanding. No panicky 'tackling' when the pressure is on, just disciplined defending and ball retention. And again Mayo looked very ordinary in possession and the longer the match went the more jittery they were.

Roscommon have a lot of very good footballers and really should fear nobody. They have already proven in the league that even with the bad starts they are competitive with EVERY team out there. But they need to knuckle down and realise that every match has to be like today. Maintain discipline and concentration for the full 70 minutes and the sky is the limit.

😀💪

Big game on Sunday.

Regardless of the result, a big performance is required here. We've shown excellent consistency this year so far, but the challenge is to back up a good performance against MO with another one here.

Galway pose a different challenge to MO, in that closing up the inside line and the central channel won't be as effective, as Galway have some lads who can shoot from outside, unlike MO.

At the other end though, there will be opportunities I feel, as Galway have poor tacklers who grab on and tend to foul, so a good referee and free takers on form will be the winning and losing of it.

A good performance and be in with a shout coming down the stretch is what's required, and the result will look after itself.

If you give the ball away, you give the game away!

I'll have to look at the recording to see how many scores Galway got from Roscommon simply giving the ball away - but it was a lot. It was infuriating!!! That was definitely a game Roscommon could have won and won by 4 or 5 points at least. But kicking the ball over the sideline, handpasses to nowhere, skycraper 'passes' to Ben O'Carroll (the smallest forward we have), dropping simple handpasses.... It wasn't even that Galway forced the turnovers, this was down to very poor concentration from Roscommon.

The worst thing about this is that Roscommon virtually always put the head down once they are beaten in Connacht. Unlike Mayo, for example, they don't seem to embrace the qualifiers. If, and it's a big 'if', Roscommon look back at that game today with a bit of anger and realise they are every bit as good as Galway, who are regarded as serious contenders, they can really go for it.

Or they can feel sorry for themselves and put in half-hearted performances, going through the motions, exactly like they have done many times before.

I hope Davey Burke infuses them with the belief that they are good enough, if they just zone in for every single minute, every single play.

I think the big thing now is we have 4 weeks to target 3 huge games, where squad will be key. We'll face a provincial champion. Could be galway again in salthill. Kerry in kilarney. Dublin in croker or the ulster champion. We might need to do our best in that game, but target game 2 and 3 to win. Especially the home game. The upside of today we can't get mayo again.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad.

That was definitely a game Roscommon left behind them. The cheap goal was the real killer. And also a number of relatively easy chances missed in the second half, espcially after being so clinical in the first.

Having said that, if I was offered a draw this morning I would have been happy to take it.

The key thing was the performance. Roscommon just went out and played. And f*ck the opposition. Just play the way you're able to play. And for a change Roscommon did exactly that and that's the most encouraging thing. I alluded in an earlier post that Roscommon just never seem too bothered in the back door, but today they looked like a top side for a lot of the match - very comfortable in possession, very composed, very disciplined in the tackle, very patient and very clinical.

It's obvious that Roscommon are playing to a very well-thought out gameplan, where the sum is greater than the parts - and it's working. I said it already, but playing this way, Roscommon are a match for any team in the country and even though the match was 'only' drawn, it can be looked at very positively and of course, Roscommon can learn so much from this match.

C'mon the Rossies!!!