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Might get a bit more work out of him if he gets a spell at midfield 
How many of today's team will start the first NFL game v Tipp?
Claff,Seanie,Dineen (??),Kenny,Finneran,K Higgins,Donie, Darren Mc (??), Ger Heneghan , Devaney (??) and Rogy I expect.

I'd take the question marks from Darren McDermott - he kicked a great point today and when he's back to speed he's one of the fastest distributors of the ball we've got. And even though his hair tells another story, he's only 22 and has gotten the sum total of 1 game and 20 minutes of championship football under his belt. I remember him at my primary school, everyone could see he was a huge talent but he had alot of injuries in those days; he seems to be over that now and he'll only going to get better with more game-time.

ross4life, absolutely, Donie is very capable as a midfielder, the image of him cleaning out Tommy Walsh in those All-Ireland minor finals will live with me for the rest of my life. I just don't know about straight up playing him at 9, for one you're moving your best forward out to a position where his threat as a scorer is significantly neutralized. I'd think playing him a bit looser, like how Kerry use Kieran Donaghy, bringing him to midfield at times, half-forward at others, would probably net better results while we wait for our full panel to come together.

Overall I  came away today thinking we're plenty good enough to make a run at promotion from Division 3, even with the Brigids players (and some others at the start) missing. Newton did well to adjust things when it became very clear we weren't getting anywhere channeling the ball through Donie, and that augurs well for him as a manager.

mayo 0.14 ros1.09   ft

A improvement from us especially the 2nd half performance, The switch of Donie Shine to midfield made the difference & with Mannion away maybe we should continue with Shine there in the league.

Shine was having a mare at full forward, everything bounced off him in the first half. I was most impressed with the two actual midfielders, though - Finneran and Higgins both did very well in the middle and kicked plenty of good ball that the forwards couldn't capitalise on in a lethargic first half overall by us. Higgins did more than enough to get a run with Mannion's jersey. Shine played off the midfielders mostly and was indeed far more effective, but I wouldn't rush to Johnny Doyle our best forward just yet.

I don't mind the handpass so long as it's going somewhere.. Des Newton played a lot of his football in Donegal so expect to see more hand passing than before. Syferus, IMO when we have everyone fit & available our starting 15 is as good as any in Connacht but i don't think our panel is better than Galway's.

It depends on how you define a 'panel' - the 30-35 people who train or the 20 or so that realistically have a chance to start when the whole panel is together. Galway would probably have more players of 'panel' quaility because of their sheer depth of a player pool but I can't really see much on their bench beyond what we have. The likes of Kevin Higgins (assuming O'Gara will resume the 11 jersey now he's fully fit), Darren McDermott/Connor Devanney, John Rodgers, Enda Kenny and Niall Daly/Sean Purcell/Ian Kilbride (depending on how the backs shake out this year) and others (yes, I still have a soft spot for Ger Heneghan!) are as good as most of Galway's offerings. And we're hardly inferior in terms of young prospects that we haven't got a real look at in senior action yet, Cathal Shine, John McManus and Donie Smith are as good as any of Galway's recent underage teams.

On a related topic, how do you rate the Brigids players on the county boil - whose county prospects have suffered from Brigids putting together back-to-back All-Ireland chasing campaigns - like Cathal McHugh, the non-Frankie Dolans?


I'd wonder what Newton's plans for a defensive system are because if we can get that balance right we're set from mid-field forward to score points. A tinge of Donegal tenacity and edge (rather than a 13-1 formation!) could be exactly what we need to move up a level.

Don't worry - we're their bogey team.

This isn't your typical bunch of students to be fair

http://www.dcugaa.ie/node/128

Over the years has been a great college for developing Roscommon senior players & continuing to do so.

It's only when you read that list do you realize how many of our county players are at DCU. It's certainly great to see so many talented Roscommon players getting the opportunity to play with the best players in the country.

I remember Cathal Cregg talking about how being at DCU removed the mystique about players from bigger counties and gave him a sense that there's very little between players, that sentiment spreading further can only be a good thing.

Our 1st defeat under the new man, i suppose the writing was on the wall after last weekends draw with lowly GMIT. Our panel seems to getting smaller by the year? due to injuries,colleges commitments we could only tog out 18 players today still no excuse for the poor performance kicking something like 13 wides & never looking capable of pulling a undeserved result out of the bag.

Mayo in Ballinlough next up that should be fun 

The biggest thing is the age profile of the panel, we have so many young players. Brigid's being so proflic recently robs us of the best club team in the county (and indeed the  province) for much of the year too. I think we'll just have to stomach some tough results in the FBD League until the age profile of the panel inches up a few more years.

It's hard to stomach a defeat by Laythrum in anything ,even as meaningless as the FBD League where someone else has first call on a lot of your panel.
Mind you if we get a GMIT size hammering from Mayowestros next Sunday  we'll have no stomachs left at all.
Overall a bad weekend for us with our U21s losing to Longford on Saturday and now out of the Hastings with one game still to go.

Should we begin to start fearing the worst for 2012 ?

Pre-season is so unpredictable as a gauge of later performance, remember the feelgood factor we got in 2009 in Fergal's first campaign in charge after we pushed Galway to extra-time in the FBD final? Then we went and got hockeyed by Mayo in the championship. There's not much rhyme or reason to these results and that is even more of a truism for a team with Roscommon's make-up.

It's one thing to be cautious, but our recent successes (at all levels) of football should have instilled a bit more confidence in the abilities of our footballers than that.

If we get a couple wins under out belts in the league and we're in contention when the St. Brigids players return (hopefully in March and with the county's first senior All-Ireland since 1944 in tow) we have every chance of being promoted. And in all fairness to Galway, our panel is probably better than their's. This team is very capable of getting a Connacht final rematch with Mayo and indeed beating Mayo in McHale.

No need to get too worked up about Leitrim in January; Galway in May is the bell-weather.

Our 1st defeat under the new man, i suppose the writing was on the wall after last weekends draw with lowly GMIT. Our panel seems to getting smaller by the year? due to injuries,colleges commitments we could only tog out 18 players today still no excuse for the poor performance kicking something like 13 wides & never looking capable of pulling a undeserved result out of the bag.

Mayo in Ballinlough next up that should be fun 

The biggest thing is the age profile of the panel, we have so many young players. Brigid's being so proflic recently robs us of the best club team in the county (and indeed the  province) for much of the year too. I think we'll just have to stomach some tough results in the FBD League until the age profile of the panel inches up a few more years.

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Is there a cryptic message behind these early morning dot posts?

Way too little sleep. Managed to repeatedly ignore the delete button. Spasm.

It's hard for me to think Walsh is really the problem in Sligo. They're a panel of players that had reached a point in 2010 where they were being hyped as being in the top eight in the country, and dark horses to scalp a team in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, but they didn't cope with the pressure and novelty of entering a Connacht final as hot favourites well at all.

I think about Roscommon being trashed by Mayo by 20 points in 2009 and being relegated to Division 4 in 2010 and showing enough character to believe they could win that final, that sort of nerve seems to be totally lacking in the Sligo team and that's as much to do with their own demons as Walsh doing something wrong. This is a manager who turned down his native county because he believed in the Sligo panel and that was a serious show of faith on his part, one that should have re-motivated the panel in and of itself.

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Ye should have learned from us .. twice in the last decade we hung on to managers past time in Carr and the Tanman.
No matter what the team or time of year or conditions 4 points is an awful effort.
Still who'll remember this night when the sun is shining next June or July?

Yes, our problems were because we 'hung on' to managers. Yes. Totally.

I see that there are a couple of games down for next week at the 'Connacht GAA centre'. Am I correct to take that as the new grounds at Clooncurry Bekan near Ballyhaunis? I didn't know that work was completed there.

It's definitely Ballyhaunis, the work must at least be done to the point where the pitches and facilities are finished.

1 Colm Cooper
2 Mike Sheehy
3 Maurice Fitzgerald

Hell no, Cooper is a fantastic footballer, but he has a few years to go before he can get in that pantheon...

Cooper's exceeded both.

It's obvious if Croke's beat Cross they will be odds on in the final as result little pressure on the other two sides.

I feel like I'm back in Cam with herself's family. All around me people are saying that Brigids came oh-so-close to beating Cross last year, and that if only they had played more long ball in on top of Kilbride they'd have won. I have to stay quiet so as not to cause a row when with the in-laws, but I was at the game and I didn't see that at all. I wanted Brigids to win for the sake of all the people I now know in the club, but I though Cross always had that match under control and the reason Senan didn't get much ball was because Frankie wasted a mountain of it. If Brigids got a few more scores, I think Cross would too.

It has to be made clear that Brigids, even this season, refuse to use Kilbride correctly - he was dragged out for frees that Frankie would be fully capable of taking and not removing one of the best big men in the country from the fray. The most bizarre sight of the entire year for me me was when Brigids got a last gasp free in the game against Cross - needing a goal - and for a reason only known to God and Noel O'Brien Kilbride marches out to take a drop in. Yeah. Not so much.

Brigids genuinely do not play enough direct football through their inter-county-level spine of Dominican, Mannion, Frankie and Kilbride. Frankie is obviously a great passer but half the time when he gets the ball in the half forward line his best weapon, Kilbride, is pretty much parallel to him, and that's obviously tactics. Playing Kilbride a little deeper and more directly would benefit McHugh too, who is hardly a small man himself.

Cross had more guile and cuteness when it came down to it, but any of the Cross supporters and they'll willingly tell you Kilbride could have caused alot more damage in that final. It was a final where it was never not in the mix, nevermind one where Cross where able to have something in reserve.

For once some senseible reporting from Breheny.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/fixture-pileup-makes-no-sense-2971129.html

Wonder how will putting Longford in Connacht sort out the mess that is GAA fixtures/structures etc?

It's the same story he and all the other papers trot out at this time of the year.

I said it before, but there's nothing stopping the GAA sorting out its schedules without adding or altering counties to provinces, indeed that should be the  first thing to do before attempting any blue sky thinking that will be hugely controversial at best. Tackle the low hanging fruit first.

Can't see anyone is writing off Brigid's this year, particularly after the nightmare Senan Kilbride gave to Cross in this year's final.

Kilbride was indeed the best man on the pitch that day. However, if Brigid's come up against Cross' again then Cross will also have experience of dealing with him too.

Who plays for Dr. Crokes? Only the most adored player (and rightly in my opinion) of his generation, Colm Cooper.

Was there some talk of Cooper having an operation? Is this going to happen after Crokes are eliminated or is he using the Christmas period?

Now you mention it I remember the talk of that operation too. He said he'd hold off on doing it until Crokes were out of the club championship, which does put him in a bind now as if he waits until February (or at 'worst' mid-March), he'll be laid up for at least the entire NFL and the first month of the championship as recovery is about three months, something that would put paid to trying to get it done before Christmas and being ready for Feb. 18th.