A great performance by Roscommon yesterday. But surely no one can be surprised by this. They are a strong team who have battled it out with the top teams in the country over the past year and who came to Croke Park well prepared for the game. They came up against a Dublin team who had not been exposed to the required level of intensity for some time - and yet in the end Roscommon were lucky to get away with the draw. It may be that this will be the closest Roscommon will get to Dublin for some time.
Nonsense, Dublin are a pale shadow of what they were for most of the last decade.
So far this year kildare should have closed out the Leinster semi, Derry beat them, Clare should have held on, cork had a great chance to beat them too, didn't see the first kildare league game, but all of these games were more or less the minimum margin, they've had plenty of tight intense games this year.
Some fair points there.
Of course "Dublin are a pale shadow of what they were for most of the last decade", and it's for that reason that Dessie Farrell spent the league and Leinster Championship trying to beef up the squad. They didn't go out trying to wipe teams out but at the end of the day they managed to win Leinster and finish top of Division 2.
If we're honest, with the new championship format, it's very hard to assess where any of the teams stand now. There are a lot of games to be played yet. And we're all hoping for the best for our own favourites.
COYBIB
Winning the provincial championship doesn't seem to have been advantageous for Dublin, Kerry or Derry in the first round of the Group stages. Monaghan, Mayo and Roscommon all brougt a lot of energy to their games.
