Division 2 Semis

Lemlin

All I can say is Cavan finally get their first trip to Croker in ten years...

dixiefly

As far as I know "trips" to Croke Park are EARNED. It is not a god given right. The way the Cavan crowd are going on you would think that someone had been depriving them of the opportunity to go to Croker. If Cavan had had any sort of a decent football team then they would have got there of their own accord.

Me, I will be joining my fellow county men for a most familiar trip to the location of our greatest triumphs over the last 20 years. We have not being playing up to our own high standards in recent years but being underdogs this weekend wil hopefully spur the lads on.

blackbelt

I was thinking that I may change one of the qualifiers in the football championship pool to Cavan.

If Cavan can get past Down,which I think they will,they should have a good run in the qualifiers.

Cavans first rip to Croker in 10 years,they better make it count.

P.S Lemlin,you're very quiet this year,up the Dubs.

Kojak

It seems sort of strange that the GAA have put these 2 matches on so late on a Saturday evening. I thought they were origionally scheduled for the mid-afternoon??

It was a good decision to let these matches be played there. As has already been said, Cavan haven't been there in 10 years. Roscommon don't get to go there much either, so it will be a good experience for them.

As regards the matches themselves, I think that Meath and Cavan will progress to the Division 2 League final. Will this final also be played at Croker, or will it be played at a provincial venue??

Kojak

This eveings results:

Monaghan 0-11 Meath 3-09
Cavan 0-14 Roscommon 2-13.

So a Roscommon v Meath final

Tristram

Two poor games has to be said. Venue will be announced Monday by CCC. Breffni prolly.

dixiefly

I just stayed for the Monaghan Meath match. Monaghan were dire, probably the worst forward division I've seen in Croker. Meath were not much better and had to rely on two gifted goals and a string of Monaghan misses.

Considering that Roscommon finised ahead of Monaghan in the league stages I am surprised that Roscommon beat Cavan who were the best team that Meath faced through the league and should have won in Navan.

Lemlin

Disappointing stuff from the lads. The midfield battle was well and truly lost and Cavan struggled the whole game.

Alot of improvement will have to be made for the Down game in the Ulster preliminary round. Its not far away.

cruiserweight

dixiefly wrote:

Considering that Roscommon finised ahead of Monaghan in the league stages I am surprised that Roscommon beat Cavan who were the best team that Meath faced through the league and should have won in Navan.

I think that you may find that the best team that Meath faced was Wexford who beat them

Lemlin

cruiserweight wrote:

I think that you may find that the best team that Meath faced was Wexford who beat them

Dunno about that, Cavan had 14 men for 65 minutes and the game was in Tailteann

Where were all the Meath, Rossie and Monaghan supporters yesterday? Cavan had sold 10,000+ tickets and there was only an attendance of 19,000.

That means there was about 9,000 at most from three counties. Poor showing.

Flukey

I was glad that Roscommon won, having connections there.

wow sierra

Have to say I don't agree about the poor quality of the football. I think the Roscommon display was very good. They controlled midfield, the backs were impressive and all six of their forwards scored from play - plus the sub!! What else is required? You can talk about quality of the opposition but these were Div 2 semis.
Was quite impressed with Meath also in the second half - their scoring was impressive not just the goals. Most of their scores were from play too as far as I can remember. Monaghan were disappointing and while they were dominant for a large part of the first half they missed chance after chance.

Being from Ross we are all very very happy with Saturday night:) (Apart from the injury to Seamie O'Neill.

gucci

yeah seamus o'neill's injury is a big blow, seen as it will be such a physical battle in the middle of the park against meath next week. word is he sprained his ankle, so if thats the case he definetely out for next sunday.
i thought roscommon done very well. finneran had a great game in midfield. cavan were slow and cumbersome on the ball, the sub ling looked bright when he came in,could have been dangerous if he was on earlier? heneghan for roscommon once again thrived on the open turf of croker despite cavans best attempts at physically restraining him. dunno how no.3 forde stayed on after putting in a rugby tackle on him about 50seconds after getting a yellow card. but alas that was insignificant afterwards.
had a great laugh with the cavan and monaghan supporters before hand in mcgraths who were slagging US about did we know the way to croker.....think that was my 5th time in as many years heading up to see roscommon there (admitally twice was with the minors last year)
hopefully final is in mulingar or cavan

cournioni

Absolute shambles of a game Saturday night. All of Cavan's weaknesses were shown up by Roscommon who just played simple long balls into their forward line. Cavan don't have a midfield, McCabe just isn't fit to win the ball on his own. Mulvey and Walsh were big losses in this department, as are Paddy Brady and Pearse McKenna in truth but I don't see either of them coming back any time soon.

Eamon Reilly isn't fit for CHB either, Keogan has got to bite his lip and get Gaynor back in there. Gaynor may have a hot head on him but at least he'll stop any man that even thinks of running through the Cavan defence.

The biggest problem of all though is the Full back position, we can't have Forde in there, he's not a full back and is too small to be in there anyway. Rabbitte looks like he's going to be out for another year and there are no replacements in the squad for full back. Why doesn't Keoghan try out some players that are playing well in the Cavan league at the moment?! Liam Og O'Reilly is playing really well for Shercock at the moment, he's over 6' and is one of the quickest defenders I have ever seen. Get Podge Reilly back? Hell even get Thomas Prior back! Get it sorted Keoghan.

gucci

thing is if cavan could have got any sort of ball in midfield they could have really threatened roscommon, in early stages there was so much space infront of ros full back line looked like it was gonna be disaster for the ros til we got the goal. then by playing the 2man full forward line in second half ye never looked too threatening despite our poorest ball playing back being the "spare" defender (sorry anthony mcderrmott)
is paddy brady injured??
oneill out for 6-8 weeks, fingers crossed he will be back for sligo match (assuming they beat NY)

cournioni

gucci wrote:

thing is if cavan could have got any sort of ball in midfield they could have really threatened roscommon, in early stages there was so much space infront of ros full back line looked like it was gonna be disaster for the ros til we got the goal. then by playing the 2man full forward line in second half ye never looked too threatening despite our poorest ball playing back being the "spare" defender (sorry anthony mcderrmott)
is paddy brady injured??
oneill out for 6-8 weeks, fingers crossed he will be back for sligo match (assuming they beat NY)

Our midfield were absolutely atrocious, you're right and with a bit more of the ball we might have made more of a game of it. Fact was we didn't and Keoghan has to take some of the blame for it. What Roscommon did, they did well. They played simple football and it worked well for them, and it exposed our weaknesses in doing so.

I couldn't get over James Reilly kicking the ball to the tallest man on the Roscommon team every time though. It was absolutely killing us. He was just thrashing at the ball trying to kick it as long as possible. He could have aimed for Ronan Flanagan who had the beating of his man every time in the air.

Paddy Brady just isn't playing for Cavan at the moment afaik. Not sure what happened to be honest, obviously a bit of a falling out somewhere as has been the case with himself, Anthony Gaynor, Finbar O'Reilly, Pearse McKenna, Trevor Crowe?? etc. etc.

gucci

seems to be all the rage these days, having good players not featuring on the panels, could name one or two players from roscommon that could be there too.
worst thing is if we win next week could be extending john maughans reign over the rossies. as i said before our poorest ball playing defender was left as a free man during, we had adrian murtagh primed and stripped off for 15 mins ready to come in, maughan kept watching the game,almost waiting for a goal or something, he eventually came on as a blood sub!! tic-tactical genius :rolleyes: