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31 January 2012
Roscommon must set agenda with win against Tipperary
By Ian Cooney
DES NEWTON’S introduction to intercounty management hasn’t been exactly plain sailing but much of the frustration he has experienced since he was appointed Roscommon senior football manager has been outside of his control. Yet he has remained dignified and reasonable. Missing a plethora of players for a variety of different reasons, Newton was forced to field shadow teams during the FBD Connacht League.
Now the real business begins, starting with the visit of Tipperary to Kiltoom on Sunday.
While Newton is admirably optimistic about his side’s chances ahead of the upcoming league campaign, one can’t help but feel that the Gods are conspiring against him already.
Shorn of St. Brigid’s players Senan Kilbride, Peter Domican and Karol Mannion who are preparing for a neighbourly joust against Garrycastle on February 18th, Newton will also have to plan without Senan O’Grady, Cathal Cregg, Niall Carty and Donal Ward. That’s seven first-choice players that lined out against Tyrone in Croke Park last year. For a county like Roscommon, it’s a big burden to carry. Cregg may be back for the Longford game at the start of March but it will be much later in the league before the others see any league action.
Tipperary have started the season in impressive fashion and Newton feels that they’ll pose a major threat on Sunday.
“We know that Tipperary are going to be tough opponents. They’ll be looking at Sunday as a game on the road that they could win. They’ve great pace in their team and they like to run the ball. Sometimes you have to pick horses for courses and maybe select a team that will counteract that from the start,” acknowledged the former defender.
While the FBD League seemed to be a pretty futile exercise given that Roscommon were missing so many players, Newton was satisfied that he got what he wanted from the exercise.
“We were able to bring back the players who hadn’t done much since the Tyrone game last year. We tired a bit against GMIT in the second-half but that was on the back of a tough challenge on the Friday before.
“We did some heavy training before the Leitrim game but we moved on from that and were fresher for the Mayo game. The fitness levels were much better. Mayo had a lot of big guns on the field for the last 20 minutes but we kept pressing.
“What supporters saw was what happened on the day of the matches but there was a lot of heavy work going on in the background. We were asking guys to play to a certain pattern. It’s always going to take a couple of games to get used to it but, in fairness to the play-ers, they stuck to the pattern. I accept that moves broke down, especially in the forwards, but we were allowing the opposition to bring the ball out too easily,” he explained.
Much of Roscommon’s prosperity during the second-half against Mayo centred around the deployment of Donal Shine around midfield. Newton confirmed that Shine was an “option” around the middle but that he still had more to give “up front”.
“It’s good to have the option but Donie has been working away on his own physical fitness. The stats suggest that he used the ball well against Mayo. You could see the range coming back into his frees as the game went on. He thrives on winning possession but he’s still an option inside,” the manager went on.
When Newton took over the reins, he targeted promotion from the league as his initial goal. Nothing has changed, despite the results in the FBD League, to alter his thinking.
“We have to target it (promotion). We were behind a lot of counties at the start of the year but we’ve compensated for that in the last month. We’re ready for the league. The players have put in some very hard, honest work. I’ve been monitoring the guys away from the panel, so I’ve no fears about them when they come back to us.
“It would be terrific to get off to a good start on Sunday. You have to try and win your home games. The players’ attitude is very positive.
“If you look at the division, there will be a lot of local derbies in it but Roscommon can beat any team in the division on any given day. It’s realistic to think that we’re capable of finishing in the top two,” he remarked.
Newton is also hoping that the absence of so many players will help him strengthen the panel during the league.
“I’ve said that we need to be stronger between 16 and 24. Now lads are going to get more game time and it’s up to them to take their chance,” he stated.
Once the first two games against Tipperary and Offaly on Sunday week have taken place, there’s a break that Newton intends to use wisely to assess the panel’s start to life under his tenure.
“There’s a window of opportunity there after the Offaly game to work further on fitness. Then we’ll try and take things to a different level for the rest of the league. “I’m not going to put pressure on the players and management and say that beating Tipperary on Sunday is the be-all-and-end-all for us. It’s a steep learning curve for every-one,” he concluded.
While Newton believes that promotion is an attainable goal, the harsh reality is that it’s high-ly unlikely with so many players missing. In an ideal world, promotion from Division Two would be the target. The reality is that staying in Division Three will be a pretty acceptable achievement.
In that regard, beating Tipperary would set Roscommon off on the right track.
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