Now just 70 minutes from the Dubs?
the Monaghan collective would have been rightly pleased with themselves that Clifford only had we were disappointed,” he said of the Galway defeat a week earlier. “The beauty about it was that we had a game a week later. In other years the Championship would have been over, and that would have been that. We would have had a long winter of retrospection then and a lot of asking questions of each other, whereas this time around the fact you had a game a week later again it was fantastic. We came together and we looked forward to the weekend. As I said, we’re still there.
“Today wasn’t a perfect performance, it wasn’t about being a perfect performance, but it was about being strong from a mentality point of view and keeping going. Kerry Kildare
Group 2
Dublin Tyrone Donegal Roscommon (0-3) after his name.
Pleasing as it was to see the mature, gutsy and confident performances The lads did that, so I’m very proud of them. We were all very disappointed after our no-show last weekend and we wanted to right that this weekend. We’re delighted P WD L +/- Pts 2 200 6 4 2 1 1 0 2 3 2011-3 1 2 0 0 1 -5 0
P WD L +/- Pts 2 200 8 4 2 1 0 1 15 2 2 101 22 2 0 0 2 -25 0 from these players, concerns and worries remain. In the end the Kerry midfield axis we are still in the Championship. We are going for our home game next, and it’s still all to play for. We know we need results going our way in other places and whatever but all we can do is control our own thing and see where that takes us.”
If Fitzmaurice sees out the last two years of his tenure then keeping a lid on the already huge expectations of what David Clifford can do will be a big part of his brief. For now, though, a meaty clap on the back and a high-five for the kid from Fossa, we’d suggest.
“David Clifford has got big goals for us two weekends in a row and he’s barely only 19 years of age. Sean O’Shea was only 20 during the week. They are young lads, they have huge futures but they are playing well and making big contributions for us at the moment.”
Bigger than big, we’d respectfully suggest.
Roscommon 0-13 Donegal 0-20
IT was always going to be a huge ask on Roscommon to recover from their 18-point trimming by Tyrone a week earlier and take on a very good
Donegal team, albeit in Hyde Park, with the Rossies chances of getting out of
Group 2 merely theoretical, given that they return to Croke Park to face Dublin in Round 3.
Trailing 0-10 to 0-5, the game slowly seeped away from Roscommon in the second half as Michael Murphy gave an exhibition at full forward, scoring nine points including five from play.
What’s next?
WITH Dublin - already qualified for the semi-finals as Group winner - hosting Roscommon, who are out of contention, in Croke Park on Sunday, August 5, all eyes will be on Ballybofey for the meeting of Donegal and Tyrone who will duke it out for that coveted second place and a semi-final place against either Galway or Monaghan. Donegal have a very good Championship record in Ballybofey, and they will have to be fancied ever so slightly, but this is a good old-fashioned Ulster derby and Tyrone, despite last weekend’s loss to Dublin, will make the short trip full of confidence.