NFL Division 3 2014

[Syferus]

Two comfortable back to back wins playing free flowing football TBH thats as rare as hen's teeth for us. Our starting team today must have been one of our youngest ever senior sides? Diarmuid Murtagh,Enda Smith still teenagers while both Dalys,Collins,Cafferky,C Shine all in their early 20s but for all the underage talent coming through you still need leaders and strong characters to drive them on and in Donie Shine,Senan Kilbride,Sean McDermott,Cathal Cregg etc we have experienced players that are leading by example.

Tricky away tie next weekend against Fermanagh we lost on our last two visits there. I wonder will we do a Cavan and rest the U21s?

Can have all the underage talent in the world, these young lads need to be playing in Div 2 next year. So we should play them against Fermanagh and make the senior side the priority.

Not this year. U21 team is too good this year to be actively scuttling it. Enough quality overage players to give us every chance of being Fermanagh, at most Murt and the Smiths should only be on the bench. Dunno if Evans will be kind enough to oblige.

[ross4life]

Can have all the underage talent in the world, these young lads need to be playing in Div 2 next year. So we should play them against Fermanagh and make the senior side the priority.

Whenever we get promoted we must make sure we are good enough to stay up & have the depth to be competitive at higher level.  Its a bit of of dilemma for Evans and co but with O'Gara,C Murtagh out injured he might decide to start Enda,Diarmuid again next Sunday. Donie Smith needs more minutes before U21 championship anyway.

Cavan on the same boat as ourselves, full of underage talent and need to be playing in Div 2 football next year.

[Itchy]

Is your u21 really that good. I know ye beat us in the Hastings final but we dominated the game and kicked over 20 wides plus we were missing quite a few. Perhaps ye were too? The game I. Breffni will be very interesting indeed.

[rodney trotter]

It wont be that interesting as both sides could be promoted by then

[ross4life]

Is your u21 really that good. I know ye beat us in the Hastings final but we dominated the game and kicked over 20 wides plus we were missing quite a few. Perhaps ye were too? The game I. Breffni will be very interesting indeed.

We should have won the Connacht U21 final against Galway last year nine of that starting 15 are still underage this year & we have the pick of 2011,2012 Connacht minor winning teams. Yes we weren't as wasteful as Cavan in that hasting cup game but it should be noted we were missing up to 7 championship starters.

Saying all that we could be beaten in our opening U21 game as Mayo away is a tough one & they will love the underdog tag.

[magpie seanie]

A bit more encouraging but I'm afraid it has to be said that Offaly are simply terrible. McNamee's effortless scores kept them in it first half but once Ross bottled him up it was one way traffic - until we got two of our best defenders injured and started shipping water towards the end.

As mentioned earlier Brian Curran being back was simply huge for us. There was no procession through the middle like the last couple of days and his long deliveries into Kelly in particular were excellent. Kelly is back on form after two iffy performances prior to this. Looks a totally different player and back to somewhere near his best. So much of the gameplan rests on him working hard to get free. Other plusses include Ross Donovan back to form. He has this pattern in recent seasons of being a bit off colour in the first few league games but then gets back to being class. It looks to be continuing. Keelan Cawley (finally in his proper position) in particular and Charlie Harrison were both pretty good - the HB line dominated. Eoin McHugh again did well, was surprised to see him substituted though he has a lingering injury I believe. Worked hard and was physical.

There are lots of areas of concern though. All the above must be seen in the light of a really poor Offaly side (sorry Biffo's, gives me no joy to say it). I do get a feeling that Flanagan is beginning to make his own mark. Some good man management things I've heard in the last couple of days and improvements in some younger lads - well, there is probably cause for cautious optimism. Think we will struggle against the better teams in the league but one more win should keep us safe and I think we'll get that.

[Itchy]

   
1   ROSCOMMON   3   3   0   0   56   35   6
2   CAVAN.             3   3   0   0      42   25   6
3   SLIGO                   3   2   1   0   46   47   4
4   FERMANAGH   3   1   2   0   47   46   2
5   LIMERICK           3   1   2   0   43   50   2
6   LONGFORD.        3   1   2   0   39   47   2
7   WEXFORD           3   1   2   0   35   44   2
8   OFFALY                   3   0   3   0   35   49   0

[Syferus]

Roscommon making it rain at the right end for a change.

[FermGael]

I have no idea how we lost that.  9 points up after 30 minutes and Longford were all over the place.
BTW the Longford warmup was something you would expect to see in a reserve match and was one of the reasons they started so poorly.

We were on top in all sections and the 2 points seemed secure. The Quigleys were running riot.
An injury to a Longford player caused quite a delay ( well done to the referee for playing on there when players on both sides were signalling for attention from the sideline) and Fermanagh were never able to really get back into the game.  Our midfield went out of the game after the black card to O'Callaghan. Longford got a scrappy goal to cut the deficit to 4 and then pushed on in the second half. We did not score for 25 minutes of the second half.  We just could not win a ball in midfield or win a breaking ball.  Longford had a stranglehold.  We managed to raise it in the last 10 minutes.  Had a great chance for a score but the referee decided to award us a free instead of playing the advantage rule.  He was very frustrating and very inconsistent both ways.  Physicality is now obviously something that is outlawed in our game.

Massive game next weekend against Roscommon. We really need the 2 points or we will be right in the relegation mix.   

[Rossfan]

Exhilariting stuff from our boys in the first half on Sunday.
Direct football, great pace, wonderful balls into the FF Line, great intelligent running/positioning and finishing from the said FF Line. All the kind of things that were totally absent from Ros Senior  teams in recent years.
Full Back line, midfield and all the forwards esp Cregg and Murtagh playing great stuff.
Mind you we still let Limerick in as we were far too easily opened up for at least 3 goal chances.
We still motored well for the first 10 mins of the 2nd half and I suppose it's hard to blame lads taking the foot off the pedal when you're 14 or 15 points up. Limerick came well into it after that helped by some very loose play by us in the middle third as we seemed to switch off in that "zone" but there was still never any danger of them getting near us.
A load of substitutions noticeably weakend the team and poor David O'Gara was very unfortunate injuring his hand after only a few minutes action.
Keenan needed to get that game under his belt and Stack needs more exposure at County level. Good to see donie Smith getting back into action too.
So far so good as we've improved 100% since the start of the season and hopefully we'll continue in that vein on Saturday as we face a tough oul trip.
I expect and am hearing that Evans will use the U21s as they improve the team with their pace, intelligence and football ability.
While we wouldn't say no to a U21 All Ireland ( would we what?) getting the Senior team to Div 2 is the priority.
Anyway who off the top of their heads can name the last 6 AI U21 Champions??

[Syferus]

Exhilariting stuff from pour baoys in the first half on Sunday.
Direct football, great pace, wonderful balls into the FF Line, great intelligent running/positioning and finishing from the said FF Line. All the kind of things that were totally absent from Ros Senior  teams in recent years.
Full Back line, midfield and all the forwards esp Cregg and Murtagh playing great stuff.
Mind you we still let Limerick in as we were far too easily opened up for at least 3 goal chances.
We still motored well for the first 10 mins of the 2nd half and I suppose it's hard to blame lads taking the foot off the pedal when you're 14 or 15 points up. Limerick came well into it after that helped by some very loose play by us in the middle third as we seemed to switch off in that "zone" but there was still never any danger of them getting near us.
A load of substitutions noticeably weakend the team and poor David O'Gara was very unfortunate injuring his hand after only a few minutes action.
Keenan needed to get that game under his belt and Stack needs more exposure at County level. Good to see donie Smith getting back into action too.
So far so good as we've improved 100% since the start of the season and hopefully we'll continue in that vein on Saturday as we face a tough oul trip.
I expect and am hearing that Evans will use the U21s as they improve the team with their pace, intelligence and football ability.
While we wouldn't say no to a U21 All Ireland ( would we what?) getting the Senior team to Div 2 is the priority.
Anyway who off the top of their heads can name the last 6 AI U21 Champions??

Galway, Dublin x2 and Cork, Kerry x1.

U21 is incredibly important for senior.

The reason those young players are so good is because underage is so good. You don't get one without the other. U21 success is a priority this year too and even a Connacht U21 title would be remembered long after a good run of form in D3 is forgotten about.

[Rossfan]

So if we don't do well at U21 and we do at Senior the U21 lads already good enough to be on the Senior team will suddenly become bad players??
Playing in Div 2 next year will bring them on a lot too me buicín.
Galway have won 4  U21 AIs in the last 10 or 12 years yet they've been much poorer at Senior than the team that preceded those U21s.
Let's be greedy and win both the U21 AI and the D3.

[ross4life]

I expect and am hearing that Evans will use the U21s as they improve the team with their pace, intelligence and football ability.
While we wouldn't say no to a U21 All Ireland ( would we what?) getting the Senior team to Div 2 is the priority.
Anyway who off the top of their heads can name the last 6 AI U21 Champions??

I'd say about 90% of GAA supporters should know the last 6 U21 AI winners. I wonder what % knows off the top of their heads the last 6 div 3 champions?

The U21s will be involved on Sunday as we are down to 26 fit players. Our injury list is mounting I Kilbride,D Ward,P Brogan,D Donnelly,M Finneran,C Murtagh,D O Gara are all probably out this weekend.

[Syferus]

So if we don't do well at U21 and we do at Senior the U21 lads already good enough to be on the Senior team will suddenly become bad players??
Playing in Div 2 next year will bring them on a lot too me buicín.
Galway have won 4  U21 AIs in the last 10 or 12 years yet they've been much poorer at Senior than the team that preceded those U21s.
Let's be greedy and win both the U21 AI and the D3.

The way to do that isn't to allow key U21 players like the Smiths, Conoreen and Murt get injured or be leaden legged for the Wednesday. Wardie will be back now the IABA Elite championship is over, Comp didn't even feature on Sunday and he's as good a young player as there is in the county. Dunno if Killer suffered a set-back because he wasn't on the 26 on Sunday. Plenty of depth in the panel right now, no need to run our kids into the ground.

Evans has done well so far this year but now's his chance to show his respect for the county and not just a blinkered approach with only a mind for the senior team. Doubt sense will prevail.

[Rossfan]

The way to do that isn't to allow key U21 players like the Smiths, Conoreen and Murt get injured or be leaden legged for the Wednesday.
Evans has done well so far this year but now's his chance to show his respect for the county and not just a blinkered approach with only a mind for the senior team. Doubt sense will prevail.

I highly doubt he'll take your advice anyway gasúinín 
He's the Senior manager and it's the priority team so it gets first call on the best players.