As usual Roscommon manager John Evans isn't beating around the bush. His team may have been dark horses for promotion at the start of the year but they're now two points clear in second place of Division Two with two matches left. Next up are Connacht rivals Galway who travel to Hyde Park on Sunday for a match that Evans heartily acknowledges can't be viewed in complete isolation from the championship.
“Since I’ve come up here Galway have always believed they could beat Roscommon. There’s no doubt about it. I think the year before I arrived they gave them a right trouncing (3-15 to 0-10, 2012 Connacht championship). To counteract that over the past two years the first thing we’ve had to do is to bring consistency to our game. Consistency and confidence. You need them both to take on the Galways and Mayos.”
The first shots in that war were fired with victory over Galway in the FBD Connacht League final in January, giving Roscommon their first title in the tournament for 16 years.
Perfect preparation
It was perfect preparation for the league. Evans said originally that, having been promoted last season, Roscommon would be aiming to consolidate.
“They were expectations well within our compass. They weren’t setting the bar too high. You have to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. We set attainable targets like winning the FBD for the first time and staying in Division Two. These were reasonable goals.”
It has been a slowly evolving challenge. The county has a rich resource of successful underage teams – having been to two under-21 All-Ireland finals in the past four years. Since a senior Connacht title was won out of the blue in 2010 Roscommon have slowly made their way from Division Four to Division Two with further promotion entirely in their own hands.
Evans came in as manager in 2013. An All-Ireland club winning coach with Laune Rangers in his native Killorglin, he energised Tipperary football for a while before helping out in Meath and moving on to Roscommon. Under his guidance during the past two years, Roscommon have lost just two league matches since losing to Meath in early March 2013.
He has asked a fellow Kerry man Liam Kearns, formerly manager of Limerick and Laois, to join him with a view to refining the team tactically.
“That was part of the reason for bringing in Liam Kearns – to add a bit of an edge to it. The type of skill we’re trying to develop isn’t going to be done in the short term. It’s something that needs five or six months. By the time we get to the hard ground I think it will suit us.
"If you're looking at winning any of the major trophies or titles I believe you have to be very adaptable. You have to be able to go defensively when necessary and offensive when the situation calls for it. That's something even Jim Gavin has yet to master but we're working towards that.
“We were quite defensive last Sunday [holding out against Meath] whereas the previous Sunday [shooting 0-24 against Kildare] we were quite offensive so on any given day we’re flexible.”
Public support
He is impatient for public support to get behind the senior team, as it has in recent years for the minor and under-21 sides whose successes he sees as being a great launchpad for his own panel, 20 of whom are students.
“Absolutely wonderful,” he says of those victories, “so much so that I’ve commented a few times that the public of Roscommon come out in their droves to follow the minor team and under-21 team but up until recently they haven’t shown for the senior team . . .
“Now though, those guys are coming up having won so much in Connacht and getting to two All-Ireland under-21s that they’re coming with a winning ethos and it hasn’t been hard to change the mindset.”
Whereas championship progress is the ultimate metric for how successful Evans’s plans are proving, he sees the league as having a specific relevance.
"There's no two ways about it. If we're ambitious we've got to be looking at trying to win a Connacht title. That's a must and the biggest problem we have this year is that all our games are going to be away: London, Sligo if we win and if we beat them Galway or Mayo.
“It’s one of the things I said to the team when the league was staring. We’ve got to be able to win games away and if we don’t we’re not going to be able to win championship games away.
“This year, whoever it is, we’ll be better prepared.”
