CONNACHT FINAL ROS v SLIGO 18th July 2010

[Beard]

In work today all the Cork and Dublin boys where hoping to get Ros in the draw for the quarter finals. I can't wait to be honest!!!

Sligo have nothing to fear from Down either so best of luck to them in that one.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

In work today all the Cork and Dublin boys where hoping to get Ros in the draw for the quarter finals. I can't wait to be honest!!!

Sligo have nothing to fear from Down either so best of luck to them in that one.

Don't worry Beard I seem to remember being in a similar situation while living and working in 2006 and the feckers were sick with the amount of humble pie they had to eat on monday morning. 

Same happened with some Tyrone mates after they hammered Laois in Croke Park and they were dancing on the streets to draw Mayo in 2004.

[IolarCoisCuain]

Would be nice if we could win in Croke park but I'm happy enough after a nine year wait to be kings of Connacht again

Isn't that a bit on the low side of expectations? All the Rossies going on about 2001 . Who won the all-Ireland that year? Surely to god Ros should be able to set the sights a bit higher than getting out of connacht. Those minors in 2006 didn't shut up shop once they had the Connacht Final out of the way. How else are you going to add to the haul from the 40s? Imagine winning Sam before Mayo. Jesus, that would be something.

Fergal & his team will take it one step at a time just like with the 2006 Minor's, but again nothing will be expected of our lot 100/1 odds with the bookies tell us that

Tyrone,Kerry,Cork are well ahead of the pack the longer we avoid those.. the further we will get IMO

You can't meet Kerry until the final. That's one down. These things are much closer than you think. Accentuate the positive. The great thing about Roscommon on Sunday was that they didn't apologise to anyone for being there. The minute you start apologising for turning up, for not being Cork or Kerry or Tyrone, you're goosed.

Besides. Cork might win the All-Ireland, but they haven't yet. They've got to be aware of that too. Tyrone and Kerry both getting old, Ross have youth on their side... You have to be positive about these things.

[Rossfan]

Begod that was some occasion and day and night and morning ...as far as I can recall.... seemingly we finished up in *********'s of ******* around 3 a m.
What day to be a Ros man. Unsung,unfancied and derided by media ( one of them said our best player was a Donie Shannon !!!!) and written off by our opponents we turned up to the Sligo Carnival, just as we did to Tuam in 2001 where they had a Galwat fiesta in full swing with bands on the street etc.
We started on fire, Finneran for f.... sake ..!!! took the game to Sligo and were well worth our 6 point lead approaching half time.
We weathered the expected Sligo onslought after half time and despite them  getting level in the closing stages( some great points alright) we held our nerve and squeezed home.
At last Fergal got them playing like he had with the minors in 2006 and having 8 All Ireland medal winners partaking over the 70 minutes didnt do us any harm at all.
Great leadership shown by our Senior players, great work done by our middle 8 ...two things we werent doing all year.
Best part was going home via Ballagh blowing the place out of it to the accompanying cheers of the Ballaghross.
Total respect to the girleen stannding on the ditch 2 or 3 miles west of Ballagh waving her Ros flag.
Where do we go from here ?
Let's enjoy the rest of this week and think about that next week

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Begod that was some occasion and day and night and morning ...as far as I can recall.... seemingly we finished up in *********'s of ******* around 3 a m.
What day to be a Ros man. Unsung,unfancied and derided by media ( one of them said our best player was a Donie Shannon !!!!) and written off by our opponents we turned up to the Sligo Carnival, just as we did to Tuam in 2001 where they had a Galwat fiesta in full swing with bands on the street etc.
We started on fire, Finneran for f.... sake ..!!! took the game to Sligo and were well worth our 6 point lead approaching half time.
We weathered the expected Sligo onslought after half time and despite them  getting level in the closing stages( some great points alright) we held our nerve and squeezed home.
At last Fergal got them playing like he had with the minors in 2006 and having 8 All Ireland medal winners partaking over the 70 minutes didnt do us any harm at all.
Great leadership shown by our Senior players, great work done by our middle 8 ...two things we werent doing all year.
Best part was going home via Ballagh blowing the place out of it to the accompanying cheers of the Ballaghross.
Total respect to the girleen stannding on the ditch 2 or 3 miles west of Ballagh waving her Ros flag.
Where do we go from here ?
Let's enjoy the rest of this week and think about that next week

Bloody Orange Primrose and Blue Order 

[ExiledGael]

Begod that was some occasion and day and night and morning ...as far as I can recall.... seemingly we finished up in *********'s of ******* around 3 a m.
What day to be a Ros man. Unsung,unfancied and derided by media ( one of them said our best player was a Donie Shannon !!!!) and written off by our opponents we turned up to the Sligo Carnival, just as we did to Tuam in 2001 where they had a Galwat fiesta in full swing with bands on the street etc.
We started on fire, Finneran for f.... sake ..!!! took the game to Sligo and were well worth our 6 point lead approaching half time.
We weathered the expected Sligo onslought after half time and despite them  getting level in the closing stages( some great points alright) we held our nerve and squeezed home.
At last Fergal got them playing like he had with the minors in 2006 and having 8 All Ireland medal winners partaking over the 70 minutes didnt do us any harm at all.
Great leadership shown by our Senior players, great work done by our middle 8 ...two things we werent doing all year.
Best part was going home via Ballagh blowing the place out of it to the accompanying cheers of the Ballaghross.
Total respect to the girleen stannding on the ditch 2 or 3 miles west of Ballagh waving her Ros flag.
Where do we go from here ?
Let's enjoy the rest of this week and think about that next week

Who on earth made the Donie Shannon statement?

[Peter Solan the Great]

I listened to the first half of the game on radio 1. Ger Canning was on about how Mayo were the hot favourites this went on for the first five minutes. Then he mistook Roscommon for Monaghan

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

I listened to the first half of the game on radio 1. Ger Canning was on about how Mayo were the hot favourites this went on for the first five minutes. Then he mistook Roscommon for Monaghan

All us Westsideshannoners look the same. Maybe he was confusing the player with the River that forms Roscommons eastern boundary. I am against pumping water from the Shannon to Dublin, the wider the Shannon is the better IMO.

[Rossfan]

Who on earth made the Donie Shannon statement?

Don't know but Fergal was giving out about it on Shannonside .

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Who on earth made the Donie Shannon statement?

Don't know but Fergal was giving out about it on Shannonside .

Shineside 

[IolarCoisCuain]

Begod that was some occasion and day and night and morning ...as far as I can recall.... seemingly we finished up in *********'s of ******* around 3 a m.
What day to be a Ros man. Unsung,unfancied and derided by media ( one of them said our best player was a Donie Shannon !!!!) and written off by our opponents we turned up to the Sligo Carnival, just as we did to Tuam in 2001 where they had a Galwat fiesta in full swing with bands on the street etc.
We started on fire, Finneran for f.... sake ..!!! took the game to Sligo and were well worth our 6 point lead approaching half time.
We weathered the expected Sligo onslought after half time and despite them  getting level in the closing stages( some great points alright) we held our nerve and squeezed home.
At last Fergal got them playing like he had with the minors in 2006 and having 8 All Ireland medal winners partaking over the 70 minutes didnt do us any harm at all.
Great leadership shown by our Senior players, great work done by our middle 8 ...two things we werent doing all year.
Best part was going home via Ballagh blowing the place out of it to the accompanying cheers of the Ballaghross.
Total respect to the girleen stannding on the ditch 2 or 3 miles west of Ballagh waving her Ros flag.
Where do we go from here ?
Let's enjoy the rest of this week and think about that next week

There was more than the media deriding Roscommon buck.

Finneran and Dineen are not County players, McDermott is not a defender, Casey is a wreck, Heneghan is Heneghan  , Cregg ...the County awaits ,Rogers is middlin, Purcell isnt really a defender so you're down to the 5 off the 2006 minors plus Mannion.
Jasus re reading that looks like we're in for a shockin batin.

[Tatler Jack]

Who on earth made the Donie Shannon statement?

Don't know but Fergal was giving out about it on Shannonside .

I heard it on Friday morning on RTE - can't rememebr who it was (maybe Tony Davis?) but he said Ros were depending too much on Donie Shannon. I laughed at it - you can't expect the pundits to be experts on teams outside of the top 3 or 4

[Shrewdness]

Fair play sligonian, i hope we see two connaucht teams in the last 8 if ye beat down, its the least ye deserve! who knows we may lock horns again this year

Congrats as i said to Tatler Jack it eases the pain to know your on the other side of the coin. Enjoy Tonight and the rest of the summer. Today has crushed Sligo football, as i said to lads off the board, this game will put us back light yrs or forward light yrs.  There was an opportunity today to get rid of all the mental bagage in Connacht and instead it was reinforced. I cant expect 30 human beings to lift it in 6 days. Im going to do my best to gee them up all week on here and HS, but i doubt theyll read as theyll be expecting a roasting, which no way will  i give them. Its too easy to kick them when there down. Chin up i say to them and come out out fight Down like the Rossies did today. I'll be there the next day as will Dad. You will never walk alone. NEVER.

Sligonian, we've had our differences on here, but you've gone up in my estimation. You're a credit to your county and it's people like you who make the Gaa what it is.

Everyone in Sligo should try to refocus this week, because in my opinion, Down is a very winnable game for Sligo next Saturday. It's going to be all about mental attitude now for Sligo.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

I can never understand the so called experts. They moan about tatical football, about puke football, about cynical football, about lads unable to field or kick, about lads taking frees from their hands, about bad passing, well on Sunday we say great fielding, great shooting many from outside the 45, suburb free taking, good hard but fair and legal passing, a good day by the 7 officails (not perfect but a good job done), a great carnival athmosphere among 4 sets of supporters, passion, determination and excitment and they feckn moan. Well if thats fckn good enough for them they can feck off.

[spectator]

Total respect to the girleen stannding on the ditch 2 or 3 miles west of Ballagh waving her Ros flag.

That feckin Charlestown Bypass has disenfranchised the real border Rossies near Carracastle - on the old N5 road - from flying their flags on the route wesht on match days, although i saw some of them parked their tractors in the back fields a-joining the bypass and proudly flew several primrose & blue flags from the top of the cabs etc ... martyrs for the cause! 


Great day for Rossies yesterday.

Fergal's tactic of running at the Sligo defence proved spot on. They'd struggled to cope when Antrim tried to run through them a few times late on in the Div 3 final & it was definitely a ploy for Ros to re-visit yesterday. Sligo's problems at FB & CHB were exposed this summer also and were another couple of areas for Ros to probe. Letting Sligo play the game on their own terms would have been a fatal mistake.

For me, Sligo weren't tuned in during the first quarter. Likely it was due to Ros taking the game to them, but i suspect the weight of expectation didn't sit too easily with them either. Fair play, they eventually settled and came back well both at the end of the first half and with a great scoring burst half way through the second half when aided by the wind, but crucially they couldn't get in front. Had they managed to take the lead when they got back to 12 - 12 or 13 - 13 they'd have won it, imo. We were looking tired at that stage - and maybe could have made the substitutions 5 \ 10 minutes earlier - but still had the nous to get direct ball into the forwards to win the couple of frees to get us over the line. There was very little between the two teams towards the end, it could have gone either way, although Ros deserved it over the course of the game. More of our players played to their max on the day and our ability to hit the ground running and astute tactics on the management's part unsettled Sligo, which was just enough to get us through. Best of Luck to Sligo this weekend, dust yourselves down & go for it lads. Tomorrow is another day.

For Ros, despite the horrendous injury list throughout the league, it was impossible to envisage this after we were relegated. Huge credit is due to the management & players for having the belief and putting in the hard work to turn things around. This squad is not the finished article, quite the opposite tbh & there's a lot more development to be undergone and positions to be resolved yet. While this win will provide massive encouragement for everyone, we still have a few years to wait before this squad reaches its true potential. As Tatler said, the expectation and pressure to win a senior Connacht title has been eased now & the development of the squad should be allowed to continue unhindered without imposing undue expectations on them over the next couple of years.