Messages

5 I think. 4 I've already mentioned and Nicholson, and O'Kelly-Lynch.

Lads what do ye make of Niall Carew up there? He's coming across as a real moaner at the moment, he spent all last week giving out out about the fixing of the match even though its always played on the first Sunday in May, it just happened that this year it didn't fall on the bank holiday and now he's claiming Sligo were disrespected all last week by people tipping New York to win even though he was talking them up big time himself, sounds like there's no pleasing him!

He was taking the pressure off the players - talking them down and highlighting problems. That's what a Manager has to do!

I don't mind that before a game, but what is the point of moaning after you win about NY showing disrespect. Especially when you're playing up their chances beforehand.

I don't think this playing down your chances always works anyway. Say it often enough and the players start to believe it. It'll work for a couple of games, but not a great long term tactic. And I certainly wouldn't waste it by using it against New York.

Sligo have done quite well in schools football, and imagine they've a good batch coming through now again.

Schools success barely has any influence at minor IC, why would it be relevant in any way to a senior IC team? That's clutching at straws to be honest.

Sligo have had good minor teams over the last number of years powered mostly by players from the 2 schools playing in the A grade. Cummins, O'connor, Cawley have already made the breakthough to senior level with hopefully a few more to follow. The problem is all the other schools from west and east of the county are playing in the D grade.

It depends which Mayo turns up. You would expect them to win but they may be thinking about September as they were last year.

It depends on what tactics Sligo employ on the day. If Sligo play the open style which Carew usually favours then the scoreline will be similar to Connacht final 2015. If its a containment, defensive approach then we may keep it competitive enough.

New York team named:

1. Vinny Cadden (Sligo)

2. Tom Cunniffe (Mayo)
3. David Cunnane (Galway)
4. Peter Witherow (Donegal)

5. Gerard McCartan (Down)
6. David Culhane (Kerry)
7. Keith Quinn (Down)

8. Brian Gallagher (Mayo)
9. Shane Hogan (New York)

10. Danny Sutcliffe (Dublin)
11. Conor McGraynor (Wicklow)
12. Ross Wherity (Donegal)

13. Daniel McKenna (New York)
14. Shane O’Connor
15. Eugene McVerry (Armagh)

Subs

16. Jer O Sullivan
17. Paddy Boyle
18. Ronan McGinley
19. Paul Lambe
20. Eoin Flanagan
21. Keith Scally
22. Kevin Connolly
23. Eoin Ward
24. David Freeman
25. Niall McFeeley
26. Paul McGinley

Does anyone know - is the Eoin Flanagan listed in the subs there the same lad who played for Sligo the last few years from St Johns?

Yea its Eoin Flanagan from St John's. He can't make the New York team yet has been a starter for Sligo the last number of years.

Darren Freeman and Luke Loughlin who tormented the Roscommon defence last year are apparently no longer with New York and going by their recent scores in challenges of just 1-5 and 0-12 both are badly missed.

Sligos Vinny Cadden who was awarded MOTM last year is still the keeper for New York and this upcoming Connacht championship game is sure to bring mixed feelings for him

Vinny won't have any mixed feelings.....he's a man on a mission I can assure you. It's a damn shame and sadly our club is losing out on his services for the second summer in a row (he'd play midfield for us) through no fault of our own. He's a good lad and hopefully Sligo will be under new management next year.

On Murf - it's a really bad tear. 6 to 8 weeks. Supposedly happened as he turned and was in the last minute of a session on the astro pitch in Bekan. He was in absolute agony from the descriptions I've heard. That news on McIntyre is really bad as he has been very good and improving all through the league. What are his chances of playing Mano?

I heard NY have played 3 challenge matches recently and the results haven't been great but I'm pretty sure the last time we went they only played (and lost to) Boston beforehand.

It will keep him out for 2/3 weeks so he would be doubtful enough

McIntyre is doubtful too after pulling his hamstring in training last week. That 11/1 on New York is looking very tempting.

Would O Hara be interested in managing/coaching the Sligo team?

Mark Brehony maybe? Fine player but must be @36 now and maybe he can go straight into management?

Talking to a friend tonight that was as dejected as ye lads are. Reckoned ye were not 'fit' enough and were poor in first half as well, even though ye were leading at half way.

The other thing is that no county can lose their better players through injury and carry on regardless. Pat Hughes and David Kelly are players you cant easily replace. I don t know what the story with midfield is? Would Kevin McDonnell  improve that area if he was released from full-back?

O'Hara was such a success in Ballagh he must be a shoe-in. David Kelly isn't injured and just decided it wasn't worth bothering with the Carrew set up. You'd wonder if Ross Donovan's whisper quiet retirement was helped along by the same feelings. The first thing a new manager should be doing is getting Kelly and making sure Donovan is back for 2017 because Sligo's FB line is very poor without losing its best player.

By which time Donovan is hitting 35 and was already showing signs of decline from what were admittedly the very high standards he had produced over the years, so no he'll hardly be back. But since you know everything there is to know about football in Connacht I assume you knew that already.

Wasn't able to make the game on Saturday but not particularly surprised by the outcome, just hadn't expected that we'd suffer another second half collapse like the Hyde. If Carew had showed signs of progress on last year (i.e. find a defensive system of some description, oh and not persist with that clown in goals too) it would be something but there's little evidence of that, granted the players might not all be quite of the standard we'd had in the last decade but not alienating better ones than those there would help. Hopefully a new manager will seek to rectify that, as well as allow the club scene go relatively unhindered, it badly needs it to regenerate interest.

If Sligo have any backs better than Donovan you're doing an incredible job hiding them.

At 34 his best years are well gone. Ross defence hasn't exactly been watertight either.

Would O Hara be interested in managing/coaching the Sligo team?

Mark Brehony maybe? Fine player but must be @36 now and maybe he can go straight into management?

Talking to a friend tonight that was as dejected as ye lads are. Reckoned ye were not 'fit' enough and were poor in first half as well, even though ye were leading at half way.

The other thing is that no county can lose their better players through injury and carry on regardless. Pat Hughes and David Kelly are players you cant easily replace. I don t know what the story with midfield is? Would Kevin McDonnell  improve that area if he was released from full-back?

O'Hara was such a success in Ballagh he must be a shoe-in. David Kelly isn't injured and just decided it wasn't worth bothering with the Carrew set up. You'd wonder if Ross Donovan's whisper quiet retirement was helped along by the same feelings. The first thing a new manager should be doing is getting Kelly and making sure Donovan is back for 2017 because Sligo's FB line is very poor without losing its best player.

I think Roscommon have enough problems of their own without commenting on other counties issues.

David Kelly is based in Limerick now i believe and he obviously couldn't give the committment required to the county setup. Surely there should have been some sort of arrangment put in place where he trained with a team in Limerick and made it up for training/game at the weekend. With Hughes, Murphy, Cawley, Egan, Marren the full forward line is not where our issues exists. Defensively we are all over the place. There doesn't seem to be any plan or structure. Once Clare and Roscommon closed off the Sligo short kickouts in the second half of both games forcing us to kick long we were doomed.

Syferus  quote ''Walsh is not putting them in a position to score and never will he ever unless he's chasing a game and is desperate.""

Well They scored a few today,

All the times this clown ran Kevin Walsh  down

Kevin Walsh was a smart player and is a smart manager  And Fair play to him and I am a  very disappointed Ros supporter 

Sligo people remain very negative about Walsh. Ô Hara did a rant for the ages on TSG. But he is v good tactically. Sligo didn't have the players.

Will have to disagree with that one. We had the players in 2010 when we beat Mayo and Galway in a replay. He played an orthodox 3 man full forward line against a strong wind in the first half against Roscommon. He seems to have evolved tactically since then. His lack of tactics cost us a Connacht title in 2010.

No need to bomb ball in when you have good ball players like Clare have. Sligo have serious fitness problems and looked terribly gassed in the second half of the Connacht SF.

Don't think it was lack of fitness. The main difference was Roscommon were able to call on some excellent substitues (the 2 Smiths, Collins) whereas Sligo options are very limited - mostly untried youngsters who are not at senior level. Two of those subs were used before halftime to replace Marren, Harrison.

You would have to suspect that this was a missed opportunity for Sligo this year after having the best 2 colleges teams in the province this year.

Most of the players from those 2 college teams were over age. With transition year college teams are not an accurate refection of that years minor team.

Wasn't at the game and can't comment on the referee. But we were 1-5 to 0-3 points up at 30 minutes. To only score 3 times more to Roscommon 11 times in the remaining 42 minutes suggests we need to take a look at ourselves also.

Great astute management. Poor defence but when you are 8 points up against a superior team you get 12/13 players behind the ball. No defensive plan

I wonder how Carew is going to spin being ran off the field when the match was in the melting pot. 1/5 he mentions Harrison's injury (he had been relatively ineffectual) and Marren's black card. Knows he can beat us is it. Well..

What's your gripe with what Carew said in the buildup?

The bottom line is a Sligo side who are one of the 10 bottom teams in the country, have the begging bowl out in terms of resources and have a small pool of quality players and they had you in real bother today and beat you convincingly last year.

All I can say is that I will take some enjoyment when you come up against a decent side. Mayo will have you by 10 points and we're much closer to Roscommon than Roscommon are to Mayo.

What is he writing for the local paper anyway? Is he been paid to write for the paper?  Was the previous writer removed from the job because of his criticism of the managers lack of tactics, selection etc..
3 of the results he he presided over as Sligo manager make interesting reading
Ross 6-18 Sligo 0-12 under 21 2015
Mayo 6-25 Sligo 2-11
Ross 4-16 Sligo 2-13
The lad doesn't have a clue about modern tactical setups. We have some poor enough players in defence weaker than last year with Donovan leaving but when you turn around at halftime 8 points up you put extra defenders in there.

Don't agree on you opinion on Ross. They are far superior team to Sligo. They did seem to forgot the damage that Hughes and Marren are capable of though. Even without several players they just ran though some awful defending in the second half. Mayo or Galway will be a proper test for them and we will see what they are made of then. But they are definitely headed in a right direction and best of luck to them. I personally hope they win it even though Syffin is bit annoying.

I agree that he has big questions to answer over our set up and tactically but he is presiding over a difficult time and I don't know whether a new manager will do much better.

We've lost lots of key players from the Walsh/Breheny regime in recent years and the other lads just aren't up to it, yet anyway.

When you look at our defence there is little we can do with it. McDonnell is a midfielder, Flanagan, Devaney and Maye are only in their second season of intercounty football, Harrison and Egan are well in their 30s now and will probably call it a day after this campaign.

If we were able to play some of our better players in their natural positions we would be a good teams but sadly we can't afford to free up McDonnell into midfield, Breheny and Murphy into the forward line and so on. There's a severe lack of good footballers with the required physicality in Sligo right now.

I don't think the equation adds up that Roscommon are much better than us if our manager is clueless and doesn't know what he's at yet he's beaten a Roscommon team last year and gave them a hell of a shock this time round. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle - Roscommon aren't that much better us and Carew isn't completely clueless. He deserves criticism but this a limited group of Sligo player seeing a big turnover of players who have served us well down the years.

Ewing, Harrison, Breheny, Marren and Egan are the only survivors of the 2012 side that narrowly lost to Mayo and 4 of them are into their 30s and will probably call it a day after this season. What's a realistic expectation for us?

If we are at such a crossroads maybe it's time to get a local man in to manage the team and save a lot of money on expenses, mileage or whatever the managers payments are called now. Last time we had a Sligo man we won Nestor. It's obvious he doesn't learn from mistakes and hasn't a clue tactically.

Great astute management. Poor defence but when you are 8 points up against a superior team you get 12/13 players behind the ball. No defensive plan

I wonder how Carew is going to spin being ran off the field when the match was in the melting pot. 1/5 he mentions Harrison's injury (he had been relatively ineffectual) and Marren's black card. Knows he can beat us is it. Well..

What's your gripe with what Carew said in the buildup?

The bottom line is a Sligo side who are one of the 10 bottom teams in the country, have the begging bowl out in terms of resources and have a small pool of quality players and they had you in real bother today and beat you convincingly last year.

All I can say is that I will take some enjoyment when you come up against a decent side. Mayo will have you by 10 points and we're much closer to Roscommon than Roscommon are to Mayo.

What is he writing for the local paper anyway? Is he been paid to write for the paper?  Was the previous writer removed from the job because of his criticism of the managers lack of tactics, selection etc..
3 of the results he he presided over as Sligo manager make interesting reading
Ross 6-18 Sligo 0-12 under 21 2015
Mayo 6-25 Sligo 2-11
Ross 4-16 Sligo 2-13
The lad doesn't have a clue about modern tactical setups. We have some poor enough players in defence weaker than last year with Donovan leaving but when you turn around at halftime 8 points up you put extra defenders in there.

Don't agree on you opinion on Ross. They are far superior team to Sligo. They did seem to forgot the damage that Hughes and Marren are capable of though. Even without several players they just ran though some awful defending in the second half. Mayo or Galway will be a proper test for them and we will see what they are made of then. But they are definitely headed in a right direction and best of luck to them. I personally hope they win it even though Syffin is bit annoying.

I agree that he has big questions to answer over our set up and tactically but he is presiding over a difficult time and I don't know whether a new manager will do much better.

We've lost lots of key players from the Walsh/Breheny regime in recent years and the other lads just aren't up to it, yet anyway.

When you look at our defence there is little we can do with it. McDonnell is a midfielder, Flanagan, Devaney and Maye are only in their second season of intercounty football, Harrison and Egan are well in their 30s now and will probably call it a day after this campaign.

If we were able to play some of our better players in their natural positions we would be a good teams but sadly we can't afford to free up McDonnell into midfield, Breheny and Murphy into the forward line and so on. There's a severe lack of good footballers with the required physicality in Sligo right now.

I don't think the equation adds up that Roscommon are much better than us if our manager is clueless and doesn't know what he's at yet he's beaten a Roscommon team last year and gave them a hell of a shock this time round. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle - Roscommon aren't that much better us and Carew isn't completely clueless. He deserves criticism but this a limited group of Sligo player seeing a big turnover of players who have served us well down the years.

Ewing, Harrison, Breheny, Marren and Egan are the only survivors of the 2012 side that narrowly lost to Mayo and 4 of them are into their 30s and will probably call it a day after this season. What's a realistic expectation for us?

We have some good midfielders that just aren't fit right now. Sligo have none, fit or not.

We have a good midfielder playing full back and McIntyre is usually decent but was poor enough today and didn't get round the pitch. Midfield whether you like it or not is a problem position for Ross. Shine is decent but not very mobile, Higgins has never really convinced.

Great astute management. Poor defence but when you are 8 points up against a superior team you get 12/13 players behind the ball. No defensive plan

I wonder how Carew is going to spin being ran off the field when the match was in the melting pot. 1/5 he mentions Harrison's injury (he had been relatively ineffectual) and Marren's black card. Knows he can beat us is it. Well..

What's your gripe with what Carew said in the buildup?

The bottom line is a Sligo side who are one of the 10 bottom teams in the country, have the begging bowl out in terms of resources and have a small pool of quality players and they had you in real bother today and beat you convincingly last year.

All I can say is that I will take some enjoyment when you come up against a decent side. Mayo will have you by 10 points and we're much closer to Roscommon than Roscommon are to Mayo.

What is he writing for the local paper anyway? Is he been paid to write for the paper?  Was the previous writer removed from the job because of his criticism of the managers lack of tactics, selection etc..
3 of the results he he presided over as Sligo manager make interesting reading
Ross 6-18 Sligo 0-12 under 21 2015
Mayo 6-25 Sligo 2-11
Ross 4-16 Sligo 2-13
The lad doesn't have a clue about modern tactical setups. We have some poor enough players in defence weaker than last year with Donovan leaving but when you turn around at halftime 8 points up you put extra defenders in there.

Don't agree on you opinion on Ross. They are far superior team to Sligo. They did seem to forgot the damage that Hughes and Marren are capable of though. Even without several players they just ran though some awful defending in the second half. Mayo or Galway will be a proper test for them and we will see what they are made of then. But they are definitely headed in a right direction and best of luck to them. I personally hope they win it even though Syffin is bit annoying.

Not too many neutrals support poor Ros. Something about being so handsome.

I do have some Roscommon heritage which might explain it.