McEntee says Sligo plan to be serious about Tailteann Cup
Sligo are one of up to 17 teams set for GAA’s latest attempt at a second-tier championship
THREE competitions have come and gone this year for Sligo’s senior Gaelic footballers. No Connacht warm-up title, no Allianz Football League Division Four silverware and now, following last Saturday’s Connacht GAA Senior Football Championship exit, no possibility of winning the Nestor Cup in 2022.
At least there’s the Tailteann Cup, the GAA’s latest version of the second tier inter-county championship.
After Sligo losing by 12 points to Roscommon last weekend and last year’s 20-point hammering against Mayo, a second tier competition is badly needed.
Sligo have been runners-up in the All-Ireland Senior ‘B’ Football Championship and Tommy Murphy Cup and would complete a unique hattrick by at least getting to the Tailteann Cup decider. Tony McEntee, the Sligo manager, vowed that the Tailteann Cup will be given a right good go – Sligo will be potentially be up against teams that they’ve already played in Division Four of the Allianz Football League as well as teams from Division Three and the two worst teams in Division Three. He said: “We are going to take it seriously – as every manager should,
I suspect.
“There are going to be strong teams in it.
“We will be going with the view of making progress in it and we are looking forward to it, we’ll train hard for it and we’ll see how we do in it.” “Right now we need to figure out how we can keep 15 players on the pitch against good teams – if we can do that then we are putting ourselves in with a shout [of winning].”
McEntee, of course, was referencing last Saturday’s 13th minute red card for corner-back David Phillips. At that stage Sligo were just a point down, 0-3 to 0-2, at Markievicz Park.
“On reflection that sending off was crucial in terms of the game – a Division One team up against a Division Four team who are down to 14 players.
“I didn’t see the incident but, from talking to people, I understand that he [Phillips] went to push the player away and maybe his hand went a bit high.
“If he caught him in the face then he deserves to get sent off. It certainly is disappointing because it wasn’t in the plan [to have a player sent off]. “Had we 15 players on the field could it have been a four-point or five-point game? Possibly? That is what disappoints me – with a lot of effort and a lot of toil, something as silly as a sending off is crucial.
“That happened earlier this year against Cavan where we lost a man. It is not a lesson than anybody needs.”
The manager, however, took some positives from the display.
“There were still some very good performances – I think Evan Lyons was superb in defence, so too Mark Walsh. We didn’t give away any goals.
“Conan [Marren] did really well, he lasted the whole game. He did a lot of work around the middle and he certainly wasn’t lost in what was his first championship match.”
He continued: “The boys worked hard until the end. There were a lot of mistakes but when you go down to 14 players you tend to try stuff that doesn’t come off.”
“I don’t think there’s any real shame in this result. They [Roscommon] scored 20 points against Galway [in the Division Two final] a few weeks ago.
“I was quite happy at half-time considering how the first-half went. I thought in the second-half if we had settled ourselves, controlled some of the play and won kick-outs that we
could have chipped over some points.
“But our kick-outs didn’t go to where they should have gone.
“For example, Conan Marren was winning kick-outs and contesting for the ball – a lot of ball went on top of Paddy [O’Connor] and Sean [Carrabine] and we didn’t win as much on that side.
He added: “There’s loads we can look at and loads we can reflect on.”
MANAGER: Sligo senior team boss Tony McEntee, right, at the game last Saturday.