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[Our underage is beginning to show through and older lads are in better condition.]

After watching the ref Devenney in the challenge game against Mayo I knew he wouldn't let us win today and he duly obliged Roscommon.

5 mins into second we are down to 14 men and not only that for next 4 attacks he gives us frees coming out of defence instead of advantage and duly slows the game down enough for Roscommon to set up defensively.

Just glad it's not an important game.

Sligo were better team. Our underage is beginning to show through and older lads are in better condition. We were awful.against Mayo a few weeks ago but today much better. Hopefully we can kick on this year.

Even when down 14 we looked solid enough. 9 changes second half too.  Squad looks stronger.

A bit like the summer in CSFC not mentioning the sending off in yere summation as if it's no bearing 😄

I think I'd hold off on such comments until and If Sligo gain league promotion and reach the Connacht final than giving any judgement for pre-season game played indoors against opposition who had 9 or 10 players making their county debuts.

You are reading way too much into that comment.

After watching the ref Devenney in the challenge game against Mayo I knew he wouldn't let us win today and he duly obliged Roscommon.

5 mins into second we are down to 14 men and not only that for next 4 attacks he gives us frees coming out of defence instead of advantage and duly slows the game down enough for Roscommon to set up defensively.

Just glad it's not an important game.

Sligo were better team. Our underage is beginning to show through and older lads are in better condition. We were awful.against Mayo a few weeks ago but today much better. Hopefully we can kick on this year.

Even when down 14 we looked solid enough. 9 changes second half too.  Squad looks stronger.

A bit like the summer in CSFC not mentioning the sending off in yere summation as if it's no bearing 😄

I have no idea how Tourlestrane and Moycullen will match up. Tourlestrane did very well to get out of Pairc Sean given the position at half-time. Tourlestrane in the Sligo Championship won every game in a close manner even ones they were expected to win well. They have shown remarkable calmness in the face of late deficits. It's exciting to see how they do against opposition of this calibre. As a Sligoman, it's impossible to doubt Tourlestrane. They get written off all the time and never waiver. I will be surprised if Tourlestrane doesn't put it up to Moycullen. Looking forward to it.

Obviously disappointed with my own clubs performance against Galway opposition in the intermediate. We had 2 bad injuries going into it in Jack Davitt who scored the 2 goals against Mayo in the u20 final and there is simply a big dropoff from our starting 15 to the subs to counter that loss. Also losing our full back and then making way too many positional switches just killed any of the flow we had running into it. The gap between our championship finishing and the Connacht games I don't think helped ourselves or Tourlestrane, 5 weeks is a long time with others playing finals after and then a knockout game before. Marys looked alot sharper 1st half but Tourlestrane found their legs 2nd half and snuffed them out. 

For a man so full of confidence, his body language in the last few games has been terrible. He looks lost, resigned, and defeated. Has he lived such a sheltered life that when adversity hits he loses all that sureness in himself. It just goes to show you how shallow it was.

Making 4 changes after Arsenal and 6 changes after Leicester shows panic in my mind.

He is not the biggest problem in Leeds however, if we don't find a scoring touch soon we are toast. Bamford missing big chances is far more to blame. He looks to have slowed dramatically since his last injury. It's very optimistic to think he will regain any sort of form.

We are in big trouble. It's a very bad sign of a team that plays up to better teams and down to lower teams. You see the pressure is on against lower teams and it's that inability to handle the pressure that shows itself in missing easy chances.

Against Fulham, on 30mins one from defense and one of their players was straight through on goal. Imagine leaving yourself that open with 30mins gone. Insane naive indisciplined positioning.

We probably need a new manager but more importantly, we need a striker. Some of the 4 options that passed us by in the transfer window aren't the right option. We just need a ruthless finisher.

My Club won the Sligo Intermediate Championship after losing the last 2 finals, last year by a 1pt.

We hammered Easkey 3-18 to 9 pts. We played great stuff from start to finish. It was a pleasure to be home for it. We would be one of those teams that should not be intermediate level given our size and talent pool. We have contested 4 Minor A Finals winning 2 in the last 6 years so that's beginning to come through now. We had 6 players on the u20 Connacht winning squad 2 starters and 1 sub with 3 on the extended. We have 1 county senior starter Luke Towey. Alan Mcloughlin would easily start for Sligo seniors too if he went in. He scored 1-2 in U21 Connacht final for Sligo in the AET Galway win in 2017. Most of our players have intercounty experience but we are very young. Our squad is for the most part injury free. I like the balance of our team and we are clicking. We won't be far away at senior in Sligo next year.

St Farnans last year's winners only lost by a point AET to eventual winners St Faithleachs so hopefully a sign Sligo clubs will be competitive.

I watched the Galway Intermediate final. Atrocious conditions led to a poor game. The conditioning of both teams was good. Some pacey young players. Dunmore seems to have a similar experience to ourselves in struggling in getting out of Intermediate and making hard work of it last few years. The keeper under the high ball looks like a weak link. Galway venue is a big advantage. Also the gap from our final to this is pretty long so not sure if we can keep the momentum. We will definetly have the celebrations out of our system anyway lol.

I am hoping the game will be streamed?

We learned a lot more about ourselves today. It was actually in our control to win that game today, too many missed goal chances which would have put them under much more pressure. We are an incredibly creative team and had enough possession. We transition the ball very well. We are defensively a lot more cohesive not conceding goals to better teams. I felt Cavan's 2 goal chances were saves Id expect Devaney to make. Our chances felt a bit more clear.

It is unusual for us to be consistently so poor on scoring efficiency last few games.

I still feel our management are incredibly slow to see good talent and are far too loyal to some of our poorer players but I guess at least they get there. To have gone into the Summer a week longer than Roscommon and Leitrim and not as big a gap to when Mayo/Galway get knocked out helps. We are also the last Div4 left so next year Id expect a bounce from this. Add into the mix we should have 7/8 u20s coming into this squad which will bolster us. I do worry about how slow Management may integrate them. Spillane was massively underused all year although I know injuries played a part. The players that we expected stood up in the main. Evan Lyons really is the second coming of Ross Donovan. Murphy showed his class probably not even at 100%. Carrabine is a fine footballer. O Connor and Reilly are quality but need to improve. The rest of the team is pretty even and hard-working but its a good base for the next few years of underage coming through and boy is there talent on its way for Sligo. The next 2 years u20s are the best underage squad we have ever had. This year's minors have 5/6 superstars who scored 3-10 away against a Mayo team that I expect to win the AI fairly comfortably.

Today actually, for me, the most impressive part was when we went 6-0 down we never looked like capitulating. I thought Sligo support was awesome too, huge numbers despite furthest to travel and got behind the team. 16k attendance is more than I expected.

All the lower-tier teams should take this competition seriously as it will help us all close the gap. Glad Cavan, London, and Leitrim all did as it brought us on a lot.

[next Saturday]

Minor Shield Final  (4th v 5th in the table) was played tonight in Dr Hyde Park

Roscommon 4-14 Leitrim 1-9

The Connacht final Mayo v Galway on Monday at 7:30pm in MacHale Park. The winner will play Kildare in the quarter final and Dublin for the runner up and those matches are due to be played next Saturday which doesn't give a lot of time to prepare against well rested Leinster opposition.

That is horrendous scheduling. Why would the Connacht Council create such a disadvantage?

God only knows. They could have played it as a curtainraiser to yesterday's game seeing as it's down for MacHale Park anyway.

That would have made a lot of sense but the start time means it could be a TG4 thing imo.

[next Saturday]

Minor Shield Final  (4th v 5th in the table) was played tonight in Dr Hyde Park

Roscommon 4-14 Leitrim 1-9

The Connacht final Mayo v Galway on Monday at 7:30pm in MacHale Park. The winner will play Kildare in the quarter final and Dublin for the runner up and those matches are due to be played next Saturday which doesn't give a lot of time to prepare against well rested Leinster opposition.

That is horrendous scheduling. Why would the Connacht Council create such a disadvantage?

I am delighted that we are in the semi-final and our players get to experience Croke Park.

Make no mistake Leitrim were atrocious, I have never seen a team give away such cheap turnovers consistently and give us that much space in the middle third. On the Sligo hand, I have never seen us make such hard work of winning (although it was a draw) when you are about 7/8 pts better team. I know the Leitrim disallowed goal should have stood so that's tough on them but 17 wides, 3/4 dropped shorts 3 clear goal chances all missed made it close.

We are masters of self-sabotage sometimes and my feet remain very much on the ground after that. I did have one continuous thought throughout the match in that we have beaten Leitrim underage teams convincingly and consistently last 15 years and we still end up not being that far ahead at senior. Shows all the underage success not counting for much. I have a lot of other serious thoughts on that but I'll keep them for another day.

I think it was 3-16 to 1-13 - TG4 seemed to have score wrong not that it matters.

Galway better team and just seem to match up against us badly. We started badly again 1-4 to no score then got 1-1. Our shooting was horrendous at times and we left a few scores out there. Never got a grip or run at midfield enough to get primary possession and we couldn't get the stops in our defence. Galway were sharp and Eanna is an outstanding talent. They deserved to win. I was hoping for a much tighter match and better performance but just never materialised. Galways defense when set up we could not penetrate and they cut through us much easier at times. They had a great work ethic and their pace troubled us. We have plenty to work on our end to improve for u20.

I will say one thing and its great to watch underage Connacht games but even in matches we won the Referees are an absolute disgrace, Galway should have had a black card when Dillon Walsh was fouled straight through on goal (just a tick given), then when Eli Rooney was fouled it should have been a stonewall penalty, I know he scored a point. Then there was every Galway forward taking about 10 steps and never once being pulled on it. We have a saying in Sligo we have to be about 10 points better than the Mayo, Ros or Galway at underage to counter the 5 or 6pts points the Connacht referee will help them with. We have had this for 30 years so I don't expect it to change anytime soon but it's annoying and blatantly obvious.

Hopefully Galway will give Mayo a better game in Final than last day.

I think we are in with a great chance. We were far the better team against Roscommon as expected. The referee reffed both defenses completely different as most of our scores were with Ros defenders pulling and dragging us whereas if they were touched it was a free. We left a lot of scores out there too. If we had buried the goal chance at the end of the 1st half too it was game over. It worked out well as we had to work way harder and our leaders really stepped up. Some incredible talent on this team.

Galway were way sharper out of the gates the last day, they had the advantage of playing a match the week before. We were sluggish and struggled to get up to speed. However, in the first 20 mins of the second half, we had Galway on ropes, which culminated in us getting within 3 and having a great goal chance saved. The last 10 mins were ruthless from Galway. I'd say Galway's confidence was knocked against Mayo and even a second-string would expect to beat Leitrim although it was a decent Leitrim team so there's an opening there. Sligo have improved every match and plays some great football. Even against Mayo, it was a great match with an end scoreline that flattered them a bit. They deserved their win but we scored 3-10. I'll be very disappointed if this is not a close game.

The bigger picture Sligo Underage has been very strong the last few years and there are a few teams coming through back to back so things are trending in the right direction for the seniors in a few years.

Did anybody see the sending-off in the Sligo V Roscommon game?

Hopefully, the cameras got it.

Sligo Football is nuts but beautiful at times. How do you even begin to explain what happened 2nd half.

The win is all that matters. Congrats.

Backed up last year's minor Connacht title. These lads are winners and something is brewing in Sligo football.

Mickey Kerins
Eamonn O Hara
Nace O Dowd

Big gap to the rest - Paul Taylor, Dessie Sloyan, Ross Donovan, Barnes Murphy, John Brennan, David Kelly

Current - Niall Murphy

Fair play to the Mayo lads acknowledging this.

The game is in Markievicz at 6pm. Just confirmed to me.

Fair play to our County Board.