Roscommon GAA Discussion Thread

Syferus

I have all the time in the world for Donie Shine, having been the key man that gave the county some of its most memorable victories in decades in 2006 and 2010 but the way the current team is set up requires much more pace and mobility than Donie could ever realistically offer.

If Cathal Shine ever reaches peak fitness again however.. well, I’d have him starting every game at county.

At FF Glennon is the best one in the county by some distance and fits the profile of a modern full forward perfectly. I think Lennon will really come good if given time to develop because he’s showing flashes in every game. I’m sure that’s part of the reason McStay keeps him on for the full 70 usually, to get as many minutes into him as humanly possible.

If we were playing a do-or-die championship match I’d be going Donie Smith - Cregger - Diarmuid in that line, though.

White lighting

Many heading down Sunday?
Will be a tough game, Clare have been excellent at home last few years and have two draws this year there against what look like two of the strongest teams in the division Cavan and Tipp.
Kickouts will be important with Clare's top class midfield duo Brennan and O'Connor so i wouldnt be surprised to see Compton given a start if fully fit. Id like to see Conor Daly keep here as for last few years i was wanting him tried here as the midfield runner and legs if paired with a fielder. Enda back at wing forward would be a kickout option too.
A win is vital hopefully we can do the business

Rossvet

White lighting wrote: »

Many heading down Sunday?
Will be a tough game, Clare have been excellent at home last few years and have two draws this year there against what look like two of the strongest teams in the division Cavan and Tipp.
Kickouts will be important with Clare's top class midfield duo Brennan and O'Connor so i wouldnt be surprised to see Compton given a start if fully fit. Id like to see Conor Daly keep here as for last few years i was wanting him tried here as the midfield runner and legs if paired with a fielder. Enda back at wing forward would be a kickout option too.
A win is vital hopefully we can do the business

A win is indeed vital no matter how it's achieved. I too hope to see Conor Daly at midfield but Compton hardly has 70 minutes in him yet so probably Enda to start there again..
With 4 points won on the road and only 1 at home maybe means we'll win this one too.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

I'm not particularly looking forward to this one, I have to admit. I'm worried about midfield, Clare are very strong around the middle sector and destroyed us both off of breaking ball and in the air in Salthill a couple of years ago. We've only gotten weaker at midfield since then.

Still, all pessimism aside, we have the personnel to win this game even if we lose 40/60 at midfield. Clare are a mixed bag, like ourselves, they fell away badly against Meath in the 2nd half and promptly went up and won in Newry. Hopefully Enda can produce a bit more threat scoring wise from a more natural position, although I have a feeling he'll start at midfield again.

Hopefully we'll be closer to the performance we saw in the first half v Meath and the last 10 minutes against Tipp. I'll travel more in hope.

As an aside, it'll be interesting to see if Clare's Gordon Kelly can get off his ludicrous 3 month suspension tonight for allegedly squirting water at an official.

White lighting

Hadnt we for some bizarre reason have David Keenan trying to pick up Gary Brennan in that match?
He might not have been named there but he definetly played there so i dont agree we have got much weaker around the middle. Have not improved but not any weaker

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

White lighting wrote: »

Hadnt we for some bizarre reason have David Keenan trying to pick up Gary Brennan in that match?
He might not have been named there but he definetly played there so i dont agree we have got much weaker around the middle. Have not improved but not any weaker

I think you're right, Keenan was named there. On paper that day, we may not have looked any stronger than we do now, but our midfield are now consistently losing their battles compared to 2016.

rossie1977

Rumors going around that Compton will start on Sunday (along with Donie and McManus). I think we might load up the midfield in this one because we were ate alive in that sector in the qualifier.

rossie1977

Smith on the bench. Midfield was probably the strongest it's been all season against Louth and McStay drops them both next game

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Enda dropped and Donie starting. Well Holy God.

By the way he was talking earlier in the week he sounded like he might go for Compton and O'Rourke in midfield if they were both fit.

Whether that team actually starts is another matter entirely.

White lighting

Smith and Daly have slight injuries that's reason there on the bench

windy shepard henderson

best of luck tomorrow lads , i cant but feel there will be a feeling of redemption around the place in ennis from the game two years ago

ye have proved yourselves to be far better since , then that day in galway , i imagine that team will change before throw in , fancy ye to prevail mainly due to the fact we have never beaten ye in the league

colm colins has used ye as an example for the last number of years as a team to inspire to in recent years , an awfull lot of clares recent success has been based on what yourselves and cavan have done over the last five years

a spy job was done on us by sean finnegan from athleague in our last win 2 weeks a go , hopfully he puts up tomorrows game on his youtube chanel

rossie1977

That was more comfortable than I would have expected going in. Clare started like they were going to blitz us but they simply couldn't keep that pace up and faded badly in the second half. I thought Clare moving Brennan to full forward in the first half was a big mistake and that allowed us to take control around the middle and we scored maybe 1-5 without reply during that period and it was the launching pad for victory.

Donie was superb today and Kilroy immense in the second half. What I couldn't understand was some of the positional changes. Fergal Lennon played most of the second half in the forwards while Diarmuid Murtagh was around the middle. Murray also spent alot of the second half in the forwards.

Pique

Have to say well done to Warwickshire for giving us a good beating in div 3a in the hurling. Roscommon isn't a happy place to be for hurlers. Clubs like Athleague and Dominics try their best but the county history isn't there. Shame really as I'm sure there are plenty of talented hurlers in roscommon.

yabadabado

Pique wrote: »

Have to say well done to Warwickshire for giving us a good beating in div 3a in the hurling. Roscommon isn't a happy place to be for hurlers. Clubs like Athleague and Dominics try their best but the county history isn't there. Shame really as I'm sure there are plenty of talented hurlers in roscommon.

What do you mean?

Pique

We're not a strong hurling County. That's all. There may be strong clubs but they're in the minority.

rossie1977

With Compton and Donie Smith starting yesterday that made it 28 different starters over the five league games.

By contrast Galway only had 16 different starters over their first four games with two more against Monaghan.

White lighting

rossie1977 wrote: »

With Compton and Donie Smith starting yesterday that made it 28 different starters over the five league games.

By contrast Galway only had 16 different starters over their first four games with two more against Monaghan.

Is that a good thing for us or bad? If Killoran and Harney were fully fit during the league you would have expected both of the to start games at some stage too.
Personally i wouldnt like be in Galways situation with only using so few in high intensity games and now with a league final to come it will be mentally and physically draining for some of them i would presume... Remains to be seen though but they could end up like us in 2016

rossie1977

Well the most successful teams are the ones who have settled teams year in year out. Mayo had ten of the same starters playing against us first game last Summer as in that insanely close game in the Hyde in 2014, we had two.

Roscommon have spent most of the last decade chopping and changing season after season. I joked coming out of Salthill last Summer that maybe 2-3 of the starting line-up would be still on the panel in 2019.

nice_guy80

rossie1977 wrote: »

Well the most successful teams are the ones who have settled teams year in year out. Mayo had ten of the same starters playing against us first game last Summer as in that insanely close game in the Hyde in 2014, we had two.

Roscommon have spent most of the last decade chopping and changing season after season. I joked coming out of Salthill last Summer that maybe 2-3 of the starting line-up would be still on the panel in 2019.

we've been lucky that there has been a stream of quality U21s coming through who have also played Sigerson

this is starting to dry up and so I expect a much more settled panel for 2/3 years

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

The ship has been well steadied since the diabolical performance against Down. We've won all 3 of our away games, if we can back that up with 2 good home results, we'll be back in D1.

McStay has been doing a lot of chopping and changing, some though necessity admittedly, I'd like to start to see a slightly more settled look about the team. Thought that we did well around the middle against Clare, although Gary Brennan being moved in to FF obviously helped. Ciaran Lennon had another very good game, while Cregg made an impact off the bench.

Massive game next Sunday for both ourselves and Cavan. They're going well and must be brim full of confidence right now. They'll be acutely aware that we've had the indian sign over them for the last few years and will want to shake that monkey off their back.

rossie1977

Two changes to the team for Sunday. McManus injured so Fergal Lennon who came on for him in Ennis starts and Stack starts for McDermott

seligehgit

Interview with Kevin McStay on The GAA Hour.Starts at 22 minutes 30 seconds.Good follow up on the intriguing state of play in division two.Crazy competitive.

Kevin McStay interview, Diarmuid Connolly ‘rested’ & midfield partnerships. http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/414049614-sportsjoe-gaa-hour-kevin-mcstay-interview-diarmuid-connolly-rested-midfield-partnerships.mp3

nice_guy80

great win today

rossie1977

Strange game today. We started really poorly then totally dominated last 15 minutes of first half and should have gone in further shead. Had 5-6 breakaways at start of second half where we ended up turning over the ball and they scored each time on the counter. We then finished the much stronger.

After giving him a lot of criticism I thought Featherstone passed well today. Ciarain Murtagh is starting to return to his best last two games after a very slow start to the season. Cathal Compton was best player on the park. If we can keep him fit (which has been the tricky part last 6 years since minor) he is the future captain.

megadodge

rossie1977 wrote: »

Strange game today. We started really poorly then totally dominated last 15 minutes of first half and should have gone in further shead. Had 5-6 breakaways at start of second half where we ended up turning over the ball and they scored each time on the counter. We then finished the much stronger.

After giving him a lot of criticism I thought Featherstone passed well today. Ciarain Murtagh is starting to return to his best last two games after a very slow start to the season. Cathal Compton was best player on the park. If we can keep him fit (which has been the tricky part last 6 years since minor) he is the future captain.

I'd agree with the entire post, except I'm still not convinced of Featherstone's kickouts. He's a very good shotstopper and has good hands, but his accuracy is only ok and when he goes long it's not very long. I appreciate he's young, but I think he's behind both Lavin and O'Malley at this stage and I'd worry about him in the heat of championship if it's decided to play him.

Already a big fan of his attitude and adaptability, I was very impressed with Brian Stack at centre-back. It's been a problem position but he did very well I thought and could be a serious option there. He also seems to have filled out a bit.

Compton and Enda really are our best option at midfield, as long as the injuries stay away.

It was a good win in the circumstances as Cavan dominated the first 15 minutes of both halves, but Roscommon showed great desire to turn it around.

nice_guy80

great to see Harney back too

considering the number of players who opted off panel we're doing very well.

Syferus

Only two players opted off the panel. We’ve added much more than we’ve lost this year and you can tell that by how strongly we’ve finished many of the games when our subs come on.

Happy with how this season is shaping up, getting results without playing stunningly and without drawing much attention. Let the likes of Galway take all the newspaper inches and be the great white hope while we can slip under the radar until the likely Connacht final in June. Two in a row sounds nice.

Tellyium

Syferus wrote: »

Only two players opted off the panel. We’ve added much more than we’ve lost this year and you can tell that by how strongly we’ve finished many of the games when our subs come on.

Happy with how this season is shaping up, getting results without playing stunningly and without drawing much attention. Let the likes of Galway take all the newspaper inches and be the great white hope while we can slip under the radar until the likely Connacht final in June. Two in a row sounds nice.

Hee hee

nice_guy80

Tellyium wrote: »

Syferus wrote: »

Only two players opted off the panel. We’ve added much more than we’ve lost this year and you can tell that by how strongly we’ve finished many of the games when our subs come on.

Happy with how this season is shaping up, getting results without playing stunningly and without drawing much attention. Let the likes of Galway take all the newspaper inches and be the great white hope while we can slip under the radar until the likely Connacht final in June. Two in a row sounds nice.

Hee hee

great contribution

miocicmma

So for Roscommon, promotion is in their own hands. A win over Cork would do it. Also a draw would do as long as someone wins the Tipperary v Cavan game. Roscommon could also gain promotion even if they lose to Cork, as long as Tipperary win well and Roscommon make up the +/-