Manager rues that outcome didn’t favour battling Sligo

EVEN in the rain, Sligo’s tears were visible. Among those feeling the bitter pain of defeat last Saturday was team manager Daragh Fallon, whose charges came up short in terrible weather.

He said Sligo’s silent dressingroom was a “miserable” place as the matchday squad and the management came to terms with the 1-5 to 1-2 defeat by Roscommon in the Connacht GAA Minor Football Championship decider.

“It was a horrible night [for football] but it was the same for excelled – deservedly winning a semi-final against Mayo on the Sunday before last to earn a shot at a trophy that has eluded the county since 1968. Due to impending Level 5 restrictions, the final was twice rescheduled so the prize was on offer last Saturday, St Stephen’s Day, with Roscommon as both teams. We were delighted to be just four points down at halftime.”

“We were thinking that the second-half would be much different and that we’d be able to create a few more chances – but we just didn’t manage to do that,” Fallon stated.

“I just can’t understand it. We just couldn’t finish [our chances]. Carrying the ball into the wind is probably a wee bit easier – in the second-half we probably would have liked to spray the ball about a bit more and get a bit of a kickpassing game going.” opponents.

But then Storm Bella’s arrival coincided with the staging of this festive fixture at the Connacht GAA Centre. As it rained cats, dogs, giraffes and every other four-legged creature, with a howling wind to match, those at the weather-lashed Mayo venue

CHAT: Sligo manager Daragh Fallon talks to his players during one of the two water breaks in last weekend’s final.

He continued: “It was in the final third that we just couldn’t pull it together, we just couldn’t get a return.”

“That was a disappointing were struck by the obvious question: Couldn’t Connacht GAA have delayed this final until 2021?

With both sets of players having to endure the unforgiving elements, those involved got stuck in.

This was a fixture that would inevitably be low-scoring – 67 minutes yielded just nine scores – as the name of the game was careful ball retention thing, dropping balls short.” “Defensively, I thought the boys were excellent and their tackling intensity was really good.”

Sligo only conceded six scores and patient passing, both with and against the wind.

Given the awful conditions, mistakes were par for the course. With each finalist having a go at playing with the wind and against it, the error count was almost identical. Sligo committed 27 turnovers; Roscommon turned the ball over 32 times. Sligo had 23 frees given against them – it was the same but, at the other end, just one of the six starting forwards got on the scoresheet.

Fallon reckoned that the performance against Mayo