The Sligo Champion

We have the opportunit­y to get things moving against Wexford

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to them Liam Gaughan, Sean Carribine and Paul Kilcoyne were all introduced which is a substantia­l amount of new inexperien­ced players at this level. Having said that you get experience from games and all these players will have figured out the level they need to be at, as it is a big jump in standard to underage and club football and they will learn from games like this.

While last Sunday’s game was worrying, it would have been a lot worse if we played well and were defeated in that manner. In other words there is loads of room for improvemen­t as we did not play anywhere near the potential of this team. In next Sunday’s game against Wexford we will need to bring the ball from the back with a lot more pace and purpose as this was lacking against Armagh where we were too slow in our build up. We will also have to get more balls into our players’ hands in the scoring zone and improve on retaining possession from our own kick-outs as teams have started to target us on this.

As we do not have the physical strength of other teams we have always counteract­ed that with pace and we need to see more of that next Sunday against a Wexford team that showed well against Fermanagh last Sunday.

History tells us that we need to get our wins at home as we have not won too many games on the road over the last number of years, which makes this weekend’s game vital for us, as consolidat­ion in Division 3 at the least, is imperative.

While I would always travel in hope to games, realistica­lly I wasn’t that expectant last Sunday but was hoping for a solid performanc­e to build on in the upcoming games. If we didn’t quite get that we do now have the opportunit­y to get things moving forward next weekend in Markievicz and get last Sunday’s game out of the system.

There was no doubt that the Armagh game was a real baptism of fire for both management and players and a real learning curve for both, as Armagh’s performanc­e last Sunday was as good as I have seen from any team in Division Three over the last five years such was their athleticis­m, power, pace and execution.

Next Sunday should be a better barometer for where we are at the moment playing a team that came up from Division 4 this year who like ourselves will be fighting hard for their first league points.

 ??  ?? Darragh Cummins of Sligo in action against Armagh’s Stephen Sheridan during the Allianz Football League Division 3 Round 1 match at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. Photo by Philip Fitzpatric­k/Sportsfile
Darragh Cummins of Sligo in action against Armagh’s Stephen Sheridan during the Allianz Football League Division 3 Round 1 match at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. Photo by Philip Fitzpatric­k/Sportsfile
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