ROSCOMMON v DUBLIN U-21 FINAL

[INDIANA]

Surely at 1-17 to 0-1 down, we should be giving massive credit to a superb Dublin team instead of blaming ROscommon management ?.

Surely today was one of those days when a team was at the peak of their powers and could do no wrong and should be applauded for the football they played ?.


Well done Dublin. Hard luck Roscommon.

Maybe. But Cavan and Longford made the same Dublin team sweat by taking a defensive approach. It is not in Ros's DNA to back off and they would have fancied themselves in a shootout. Maybe another day Ros could have gone on a roll. They did against Cork and there is no such thing as a bad Cork U21 team. Wouldn t read an awful lot into this U21 stuff. If underage form held up Mayo would be Div.3. There are several top senior prospects in that losing Roscommon team regardless of that mess today and that is all that counts really.

Five years of losing to the AI winners. I think everyone is beyond sick with knocking on the door at this stage. An U21 AI would be a moment no Roscommon supporter would ever forget, beyond it helping lads develop it is a wonderful grade typified by probably the best football in the country.

Does an U21 win mean that much Sy. and why? I know our 21 in 06 and minor last Sept. were a bit of relief but meant damn all really. To me anyway. But they d be very special for girlfriends, siblings and mammies and daddies etc. Yeah and its nice footaball and colleges football is as well but who sees that?

Are you suggesting Ros. should change their style and play different. 5 years of losing to AI winners is neither here not there. Mayo seniors have knocked out the last 3 AI winners but we re still a serial loser. What do likes of Mayo and Ros. do? The stuff we usually do is not good enough.

Don't think I ever suggested we change our style in any radical way, just be able to shift our game to suit what's in front of us. Dublin did it by playing a rather defensive brand of football themselves against Cavan. They certainly didn't try to play the same game against us.

We struggled over Sligo but man-handled Leitrim when they tried to play the same game, yet we seem to have overlooked what Cork did to us just because we scored more points than them. That was the learning experience that told us loud and clear we needed more cover at the back when Dublin were going to be coming at us with McHugh, Costello and Mannion.

We were so wide open today that we literally had a man scrambling after the fella the ball was being passed to only after the pass had been laid. Their FF line was fantastic but so would our's if Dublin had given us as much space to use.

Both Roscommon and Mayo have rarely been wanting for passion or spirit but it's amazing that the most fixable aspects of the sport - being able to read and react to an unfolding game - seem foreign. All it takes is one mind on the sideline and some intelligent training and that can be changed. The fact we can train backs to kick-pass 50 yards accurately or know how to score from 45 meters out but not how to drop back effectively is a bizarre situation to say the least.

Just look at what John Evans did last year against Tyrone in the Qualifiers - we sat back very and played a very defensive game that frustrated Tyrone in the same ways Donegal had done the previous two years. With a bit of guile we had that game in our grasp. Still, it was ugly as all hell - both teams just sat back in their castles trying to break down the unbreakable - but after years of silly tactics seeing a tactic that made sense with regards what was in front of us was something very pleasing to watch.

I don't think you'd have beaten us anyway Syferus. That's probably the best u21 team we've ever had and without Ciaran Kilkenny and Shane Carthy. I wouldn't beat yourselves too much up over it. You'll still get 5/6 seniors off that team. Not sure I'd believe all the stories that winning an all-ireland u21 is absolutely vital- getting there is though.

Our limiting factor all year is that we just haven't performed and in truth were lucky to be there. First 35 minutes yesterday we just turned it on like that team can.

With us winning the AI minor in 2012 we should be very strong again next year at u21. However it will completely taper off after that.

To be honest I don't know if we'd won but we were so poor in all aspects in the first half we never even gave ourselves a chance. We had an amazingly poor penalty by Donie followed by a howler of an attempt of a point from the same player a minute later. Those scores would have left it 0-07 to 1-02 and were probably our route into the game if there was to be one.

To be honest, for all for Dublin's talent Cavan made them look very average indeed. They were not unstoppable, just as we weren't just because we looked good in previous games.

The fact we didn't learn from our own mistakes and Dublin's weaknesses the last day left us very exposed yesterday. With better tactics the game would have been much closer to what it was in the second half, i.e. an actual battle, rather than what we saw in the first.

Lads like Corcoran and Murtagh never stopped trying and to be fair that is testament to themselves but, really, much better was expected than a 1-17 to 0-01 start.

I think you lost 11 of the first 12 kick-outs. Very hard for any management team to prepare for that. The game is so much based on winning the kick-outs that you can't put a premium on lads being able to sweep up the breaks.

Paul Galvin made a career out of it.

[Rossfan]

I think you lost 11 of the first 12 kick-outs.

And we still continued to bomb them out on top of midfield. Changing kick out and trying to stuff the defence  would be the kind of running repairs you'd hope your management would try to address as the situation unfolded.
As for Mwr and Ros always playing "nice" football ....... give me a winning team any day no matter how they do it.
It was disappointing to see a lot of our lads seeming to go into hiding too and it looked like Dublin had about 4 extra men. Jasus at one stage when we were  about 9-1 down I counted at least 11 lads just jogging about as if it were only an oul training game.
I know when disaster strikes an underage team there are no wise oul heads there to try and get them going but we badly needed a Cakelike figure to have started roarin and shoutin at them to "get into the fcukin game" ( like the Dublin bucks did from the start).

[ross4life]

Well No. Mayo don t have any defensive system at all! It depends on how hard the forwards work on tackling when we lose the ball, which is often, and it depends on the fitness of likes of Cuniffe and Barrett. Both of those are naturally attacting half backs but they have adjusted a bit. Lose them and it s a scramble and hope for the best. That s when our midfield and hb and hf line have to kick in.

If we pick the wrong ff line and play the likes of McLoughlin inside we re fucked because he hoovers up and processes so much ball  in hf line he s a damage limitation as well as being creative.

Apart from Caff. we dont have a conservative player on the team and he had to be conditioned into that over several years. Our defense is not a system but an accident.

I beg to differ Moy. Check the scores Mayo have conceded in the last two senior championship seasons.

2012

V Leitrim 0-10
V Sligo 0-10
V Down 2-9 (11 scores)
V Dublin 0-16
V Donegal 2-11 (13 scores)

2013

V Galway 0-11
V Roscommon 0-9
V London 0-10
V Donegal 1-10 (11 scores)
V Tyrone 0-13
V Dublin 2-12 (14 scores)

A Defensive system is in place throughout the team for example wing forwards are expected to track any opposing half back that roams forward and a player with a great engine like McLoughlin his expected to hoover up the breaks. This type of system requires sheer workrate and it didn't come about by accident. From what i recall the 2nd halves against us and Galway in 2011 was the first time Horan and co worked from this game plan.

Now compare to our U-21s yesterday as you claimed we went out with the same tactics. Seriously did you see any system,game plan in place that gave us a fighting chance? 1-21 conceded in just 60 mins and most of those Dublin scores were picked off with ease. In the semi final we held Cork to 0-5 in the first half which gave us the platform to win however the 3 goals conceded was enough of a warning sign for the final but astonishing it was ignored.

[Syferus]

I think you lost 11 of the first 12 kick-outs.

And we still continued to bomb them out on top of midfield. Changing kick out and trying to stuff the defence  would be the kind of running repairs you'd hope your management would try to address as the situation unfolded.
As for Mwr and Ros always playing "nice" football ....... give me a winning team any day no matter how they do it.
It was disappointing to see a lot of our lads seeming to go into hiding too and it looked like Dublin had about 4 extra men. Jasus at one stage when we were  about 9-1 down I counted at least 11 lads just jogging about as if it were only an oul training game.
I know when disaster strikes an underage team there are no wise oul heads there to try and get them going but we badly needed a Cakelike figure to have started roarin and shoutin at them to "get into the fcukin game" ( like the Dublin bucks did from the start).

Fergal and Cake as joint managers.

[Rossfan]

You dropping your mate "Nige" then Syfín??
How about McStay if Nigel steps down?

[Syferus]

You dropping your mate "Nige" then Syfín??
How about McStay if Nigel steps down?

Nigel has Council business to attend to.

Fergal, K-Mac and Cake as joint managers so.

[moysider]

Well No. Mayo don t have any defensive system at all! It depends on how hard the forwards work on tackling when we lose the ball, which is often, and it depends on the fitness of likes of Cuniffe and Barrett. Both of those are naturally attacting half backs but they have adjusted a bit. Lose them and it s a scramble and hope for the best. That s when our midfield and hb and hf line have to kick in.

If we pick the wrong ff line and play the likes of McLoughlin inside we re fucked because he hoovers up and processes so much ball  in hf line he s a damage limitation as well as being creative.

Apart from Caff. we dont have a conservative player on the team and he had to be conditioned into that over several years. Our defense is not a system but an accident.

I beg to differ Moy. Check the scores Mayo have conceded in the last two senior championship seasons.

2012

V Leitrim 0-10
V Sligo 0-10
V Down 2-9 (11 scores)
V Dublin 0-16
V Donegal 2-11 (13 scores)

2013

V Galway 0-11
V Roscommon 0-9
V London 0-10
V Donegal 1-10 (11 scores)
V Tyrone 0-13
V Dublin 2-12 (14 scores)

A Defensive system is in place throughout the team for example wing forwards are expected to track any opposing half back that roams forward and a player with a great engine like McLoughlin his expected to hoover up the breaks. This type of system requires sheer workrate and it didn't come about by accident. From what i recall the 2nd halves against us and Galway in 2011 was the first time Horan and co worked from this game plan.

Now compare to our U-21s yesterday as you claimed we went out with the same tactics. Seriously did you see any system,game plan in place that gave us a fighting chance? 1-21 conceded in just 60 mins and most of those Dublin scores were picked off with ease. In the semi final we held Cork to 0-5 in the first half which gave us the platform to win however the 3 goals conceded was enough of a warning sign for the final but astonishing it was ignored.

Our relative meanness the last 2 championships was down to savage workrate and hunger and the fact that we owned a lot of ball and sometimes blew away teams early rather than any sophisticated system. In the 2 finals we were shown up as being defensively naive allowing Murphy and Brogan be isolated in 1 on 1 situations.

Yesterday Dublin winning so much early possession gave them a platform to attack at will. Roscommon s general work rate was not good and heads seemed to drop. The urgency to compete was absent and the scoring burst in the second half kinda disguises how bad things were.

Why this happened I dunno. They got a lot of the championship their own way and I suspect that mentally they were tuned in for a shoot-out in a 50/50 type game and when a different scenario began to develop they could not adjust. The same defense was tigerish enough in Castlebar. Now I m not saying we were any good but Ros looked well up for it that night all over the pitch. Ye could have done with a better test from us and with Regan injured we were no threat. Even the Cork game Roscommon were in control for so much of it.

[Zulu]

In the 2 finals we were shown up as being defensively naive allowing Murphy and Brogan be isolated in 1 on 1 situations.

I'd disagree with that Moy. Bernard Brogan got in one on one against Cork in an All Ireland semi final, Kerry got 3 goals against Dublin in an All Ireland semi final, Andy Moran's goal in the All Ireland was from a long ball in and a 2 v 2 situation in the Dublin defence. Unless a team plays a very defensive system there is always the possibility of full backs being isolated one on one against their opponents at times in any game. I wouldn't take one on ones being a mark of a poor defensive system, a 3 v 1 would be but 1 v 1 is the nature of football. In both the examples you mention the full forwards did exceptionally well and would give credit to the forwards rather than criticising the defence.

There is no top team playing without a defensive plan it's just they are not all as structured and negative as Donegals.

[Zulu]

All the action live on midwest. The Star spangled banner just got an airing there, first for everything I suppose.

http://www.midwestradio.ie/index.php/listen-live

[Zulu]

Mayo 0-2 New York 0-0. Vaughan and McLoughlln with the scores.

EDIT: I've these posts in the wrong thread!!

[Blowitupref]

There is no top team playing without a defensive plan it's just they are not all as structured and negative as Donegals.

Spot on and while they aren't as negative as Donegal were in 2011. Mayo are one of the best with a defensive and structured plan in place.