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Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Forwads lack cutting edge
Mayo 1-9 Roscommon 0-8
Roscommon have been in worse fettle ahead of a national league campaign but they will still be bitterly disappointed with this result in Ballinlough on Sunday.
In many aspects of the game, the home side matched Mayo but the concession of a needless 37th minute penalty, which was converted by sharpshooter Mark Ronaldson, swung the game back in John O’Mahony side’s favour and cemented their place in the Connacht League final against Galway.
There were many positive aspects to Roscommon’s performance. An excellent showing from Castlerea St. Kevin’s Michael Killilea who held the highly regarded Aidan O’Shea scoreless was flavoured by a solid showing from Ian Kilbride at centre-back who, once again, brought a muchneeded presence to the position.
Yet much of that good work in defence was undermined by another poor showing from the forwards.
As a unit they worked their socks off but their primary objective of putting the ball between the posts wasn’t achieved with any real conviction. Against NUI Galway, it was a case of shots for goal going astray.
Here, creating chances proved problematic and it took over 20 minutes before Roscommon had any meaningful effort on goal from general play.
At that stage Mayo were 04 to 0-1 ahead and threatening to escape from Roscommon’s clutches.
However, the arrival of Gary Cox and the deployment of Enda Kenny further out the field coincided in an upturn in Roscommon’s fortunes.
The team finally began to gobble up breaking ball and three points in the last ten minutes from Ger Heneghan, Ian Kilbride and Cox left Roscommon trailing by a single point at the break, 0-5 to 0-4.
A sprightly start from the home side resulted in two points inside a minute from Heneghan and Cox. Mark Ronaldson restored parity from a free and it was all to play for by the 32nd minute.
With the game on a knifeedge, Roscommon made the crucial mistake.
Possession on the left wing was lost by John Rogers, who had a good game overall.
Mayo worked the ball into Enda Varley and he was upended inside the small square.
Penalty awarded and the accurate Ronaldson shot low and hard beyond Geoffrey Claffey’s despairing dive.
Mayo never threatened to pull away from their opponents but they always paraded the cuteness to stay three or four points in front.
John Rogers, a difficult free from the left, and Ronaldson swapped frees but, despite the introduction of Paul Freeman, Roscommon never came close to getting the goal they required. Rogers left two points in it with 13 minutes to play but two frees from Ronaldson and Andy Moran (from distance) gave the spoils to the visitors.
Overall, it has been a solid Connacht League campaign for Roscommon. Fergal O’Donnell may have found a full-back and centre-back but he’ll be praying that the return of Donal Shine and company can catapult his side’s scoring ratio into double figures during the National Football League.
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