Roscommon GAA Discussion Thread

Looks like a competition to see how many halfbacks we can fit into the same team :)

Has Doyle dropped out of the panel altogether?

After the Mayo debacle I said I wasn't going to go today as a form of protest... but of course I ended up going. I wish I didn't change my mind.

The first half was simply a contiuation of the last day. Complete lack of urgency, no pace, careless in possession and absolutely no penetration.

At least in the second half they finally showed a bit of bite and urgency. Not that it made a whole lot of difference, as even when Roscommon got back to 3 points on more than one occasion, you just never felt that Kerry were not going to win.

Following on from a few posts I made recently, I have to be fair and say that Ultan Harney was very impressive when he came on. He brought much-needed strength and aggression around the middle and his ability to run directly at the opposition while not losing possession is a very important to Roscommon.

From a league point of view, here's hoping Derry put out a second-string side with one eye on the League final. It's clutching at straws, but you never know.

However, from a bigger picture, I'm worried. I can't understand how a side can deteriorate so much in a year and why so many quality players and two coaches walked away after a year that showed so much promise.

Good post. I'm finding it hard to be optimistic for us going forward into the championship. Does anyone know why McGovern and McHugh left the setup? Burke seems to be happy enough anyway from his interview after the game on the Sunday game last night.

Mayo fan here so can't give much insight on the recent developments of your lads, but when the two sides met at minor in '21 ye gave us a right good hiding, 4-13 to 2-12 and the scoreline flattered us. Ye won pulling up.

No question they'll be in with a shout on Wednesday if they've kept half the group together & got some reasonable progression. We got blown away by the strength and physicality at midfield that day and even bringing in some very talented young lads from our '22 minor final side (wouldn't be surprised if we've a couple of u18s involved this year too along with a backbone of mostly u19s) that's an area we'll still be focusing on/worrying about come Wednesday (I'd know a lot of the lads involved to watch from club/previous underage and couldn't even begin to guess who from about 8 of them might be in the middle come throw-in).

Should be a cracking competition with the move to round-robin this year. All of Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and reigning champions Sligo (still not entirely sure how they beat Galway last year) will be fancying their chances I'd imagine.

A few solid runners (back and front) and some of the more exciting underage scorers we've seen in recent memory on our side so if they can live with that potential higher physicality (from you, Galway and Sligo) we'd be hoping to do well.

Niall Hurley alone can be worth the entrance fee if he catches form. I'd have fancied him making a fairly big impact for us at senior this year but guessing the S&C isn't quite there yet (tricky player, young O'Carroll-esque, so would probably take an awful lot of punishment when he gets thrown in there). Dara Hurley, Diarmuid Duffy, Darragh Reilly, Ronan Clarke, James Mahedy, Paul Gilmore, Sean Morahan, Conal Dawson, John MacMonagle and Tom O'Flaherty (along with Rio Mortimer, Yousif Coghill, Darragh Beirne and Tom Lydon just u18s) all lads I'd be hoping to push on in coming years and have senior potential from this lot.

Diarmuid Duffy started a league game for us at senior and played +90 minutes this year before dropping back to 20s a couple of weeks ago & Darragh Reilly played a challenge game for us early in the year (vs club all stars) making a nice late cameo. Tom, Sean & Conal would have been around the extended panel the last year or two and involved in the odd friendly/challenge game.

Darragh a relatively new name for us even here in Mayo as most of his recent years has been spent playing underage soccer for Ireland. Would have spent a lot of time from u15 to u17 with a well known Evan Ferguson (played left back on those teams iirc). Shows as a creative and decent scoring wing forward for his club so interesting to see how the new management team (a few well known names involved there) end up using him.

Notable only 4 of those mentioned (Tom, Conal, Sean and Darragh) in their final year of 20s, going to be a fairly young squad for us I'd guess.

Neither side has released the panels yet this year (Sligo the only Connacht side I've seen putting them out yet) when they normally come out ~week before the first game so still plenty of question marks bouncing around on both camps I'd imagine.

Heard Mc Hugh left as he felt he wasn't getting to do his job ie coaching the team as Burke likes to be involved in all aspects.... thought it made sense seen as Mc Hugh took up the club managers job in Galway a few months ago so his reason of too far of a distance doesn't hold up...

Yeah, even got 5 of the '23 minors involved in the 24 selected as well. A very young panel.

There are a couple of the '21 starters out at the moment. Clarke, Maheady (though both part of that '22 minor side too) and Corless would all likely be starting again if available, but even that would only push it from 7 to 8 in their final year at the grade. No big shock as you mentioned, the '22 lads are showing well in 21s/senior, so there on merit and made it a real tough panel cut for some of the '21 lads (hopefully it pushes a few of them on, lads like Adam Beirne that didn't make it but with bags of potential).

Any word on how your lads are going?

Was gutted to hear of Colm Neary's injury. He looked fantastic in '21 and heard some rave reviews on more recent Strokestown performances, so sounds like he's progressing well. Heh, no doubt I'll be sick of the sight of him in a few years when he's broken my heart a few times!

I see Derry have named a strong team on Sunday. Can't see us winning on Sunday.

Team named

Nope, I'm inclined to agree. It's difficult to see where an improvement will come. Especially since we don't seem to have fitness or mindset or both to stay with better teams in last few mins. Our forwards are no longer as accurate as they used to be either. Our scoring, outside the Monaghan game, hasn't been good.

Most definitely the games v Tyrone and Galway were 3 points left behind.

Really impressive performance. Very disciplined, well-drilled, hard-working and confident.

The forwards always looked dangerous and showed really well for the long foot passes put their way.

Personally, I love watching Rob Heneghan play. He must be a nightmare to mark.

Hopefully, they can keep pushing on.

U20s beaten by a better team. Tyrone were extremely impressive and I would fancy them to win the final.

Roscommon didn't help themselves by losing every single kickout from both ends for the first 15 minutes. They didn't seem to have any idea what to do when Tyrone pressed on theirs and they deliberately conceded all Tyrone's in that period. A large number of Tyrone scores came directly from the possession gained from kickouts.

The first Tyrone goal was a disaster defensively. The corner back carried the ball, almost untouched, all the way from the full-back line to the edge of the Roscommon square where he easily set up the goal.

Tyrone were stronger physically and were able to run past Roscommon players again and again.

There were some fine displays individually from Roscommon, with special mention for McGinley, who finished well, but also showed very well for the ball and a number of times won ball he had no right to win.

Roscommon kept trying to the very end, but as I said were just beaten by a very impressive team.

Tyrone were different class for long stretches. But we competed on scraps, long ball and the goals kinda came at right time. We hadn't the capability to get level or go ahead in 2nd half and Tyrone got going when their counter offences yielded scores pretty quickly and they just pulled away.

I think the feeling in the group was that Tyrone are the outstanding team in the Division. The Roscommon player I spoke to was confident they are the second best, we would beat Leinster or Munster winners but Tyrone were outstanding.

Moot point, but probably accurate.

In spite of the final scoreline, I felt Roscommon played quite well for a lot of the match yesterday. I know the two goals put an ugly look on it, but in reality that was a 5-6 point game, which considering how poor Roscommon have been this year could be deemed progress.

The restarts were one area that frustrated though. They were just so slow! Not enough players really, really making themselves available for the kickout and when the ball went long the old Roscommon bugbear of being very slow to react/read breaking ball meant they were living off scraps for big chunks of the game.

Once again Roscommon's finishing was very impressive. It's funny that in the most difficult area of the game Roscommon are seldom found wanting, but in other 'easier' areas they struggle.

With Paddy Durcan out (the real leader of the Mayo team), if Roscommon can reproduce yesterday's form there's no reason they cannot beat what is a pretty ordinary Mayo team next week. But….