The first round of championship games and we already have two shocks. Supposed shocks at least.
Antrim were supposed to be out on their ears in round one of the qualifiers having been drawn away to Laois. Sligo were apparently nothing more than a waste of Roscommon’s time en route to a provincial final and an inevitable rise to All-Ireland glory.
It doesn’t work like that though.
Three times over the weekend, there were clear favourites facing off with an underdog who should just have accepted that these games are just a procession.
Fermanagh huffed and puffed against Monaghan but they didn’t ask them enough questions.
Antrim decided late in the game when Laois were 1/80 with the bookmakers to win that they’d finally pose their hosts a problem or two and they quickly exposed cracks lining the Portlaoise core.
Sligo? Well Sligo were just perfect. They had a clear method, they had wonderful patterns and they worked a way around the Roscommon defence time and time again.
You know, call it obvious or needless but you don’t win games without scoring. Too many managers are not thinking about how they can score enough to beat the other team. They’re just thinking about how they can limit them.
And, okay, whilst Fermanagh were probably playing the pick of the lot at the weekend in Monaghan, they had no attacking strategy.
Fermanagh v Monaghan
This was the side’s first score of the day. Tomas Corrigan has a bit of courage, he runs at the Farney blanket, he takes the ball into traffic and he hits Fermanagh’s only score from play from any of their forwards. He’s still forced to kick under pressure from a bit of distance but his initiative is rewarded.
Ryan Jones shows a similar bit of drive and purpose but look where he is forced to kick from. Off the top of his laces, too. In Ryan Jones, they have someone who can kick those scores though and he does it here again but Pete McGrath’s side weren’t making it easy for themselves.
Again, Jones is forced to go from downtown.
As is Declan McCusker.
The half back back again kicks an absolute beauty, this time from beyond the 45′. That’s all fine, it’s actually bloody fantastic and it’s great to watch but you don’t win games scoring 14 or 15 absolute screamers. All these were Fermanagh scores, all flash in the pan moments of brilliance but nothing you could base a game-winning attacking strategy on. Meanwhile Monaghan were just kicking inside where Kieran Hughes was winning so much ball, Conor McManus was available and they were either drawing handy frees or tapping over close-range scores. Methodical. Easy.
Aidan Breen – a ridiculous score, hats off. Monaghan men and all their numbers behind the ball will even applaud you because they know you won’t win the game doing that. Dublin had the nation laughing in last year’s semi final when they were kicking outrageous points from distance and completely wiping out Donegal’s blanket defence. Everyone thought that was how you beat it. They couldn’t sustain it, of course they couldn’t, and they eventually ran out of ideas up top.
When Fermanagh took the ball to Monaghan, they slowed up, they lost possession, they offered no real verve. Instead, they relied on mammoth scores that the rest of their play deserved but, say it again, you don’t win games if you don’t score. And they didn’t think of how they could score enough.
Laois v Antrim
With Antrim, it was almost a case of what were you waiting on?
The Saffrons were dead and buried in Portlaoise, they were nine points down at a stage and the bookies had all but stopped taking bets on a revival. Some fans even tuned out from the north east, having assumed the season was over.
But then something crazy happened. They threw caution to the wind, they had nothing to lose, they went for it. Against, a better, more confident outfit, it mightn’t have made a difference but they had to at least ask some sort of questions and this time, Laois didn’t have the answers.
Look at the difference straight away from a Fermanagh score to an Antrim score. Inside the 21′, even with opposition defenders in place, Antrim worked their way through and took the easy score. If they could keep doing that, they would win. And they did keep doing it.
Mark Pollock raised a white flag on this occasion but just look at how the Ulster men have barged down the Laois rearguard. They’re virtually four on two and in for goal there and they really should’ve taken three points from the move but this was now a method, a pattern that was repeating itself and more chances came.
The first goal. The ball is kicked long and first-time into Ryan Murray completely isolated with his man inside. He turns, he hits the net, the comeback is well and truly on. Laois are trying to get bodies back, but Antrim have a way around it. They have a strategy. Yes, a strategy to score. That’s how you win games.
The game-winning goal, they have a man over. They have seven attackers pushed up onto just six defenders in play for Laois. McAleese does the rest.
Antrim got men back too, all well and good. They worked damn hard and they tried their best to shut Laois down. None of it really mattered one bit though until they decided to throw some of their own punches. And, on this occasion, they met an adversary with a glass jaw.
Sligo v Roscommon
There was more than just a bit of gusto and balls needed from Sligo though.
They weren’t facing a Laois side with clear problems and a lack of confidence. They were facing a Division One Roscommon outfit with plans of grandeur. But, my, how they prepared for it.
Rossies manager, John Evans, spoke about Sligo after the game and he referred to their hunger. Then he said they gained confidence and they sensed Roscommon were off their game so they went for it. They were hungry and they did grow bolder as the game wore on but it started with their strategy. And, okay, their tenacity.
Here, they have filtered men back but they’re putting pressure on Roscommon out the field. They’re not conceding an inch of Markievicz Park and the defenders pushing out allows more of them to drop back in the background.
They shell-shocked Roscommon who seemed genuinely surprised that Sligo were up for the fight. They turned this ball over in the opposition half and they scored from it.
But they did have scoring power, by God they had it. And they used it. They used it to win the game.
There’s a cool drill you use for underage players that develops their off-the-ball running, their timing, their support play. It’s basically like a wave of attack. The ball gets popped forward diagonally to a stationary man, a runner comes off his shoulder. That gets popped forward diagonally, a runner comes off his shoulder and, almost rugby-like, men are streaming forward.
You can develop it with a kick pass, a runner off the shoulder and so on. Sligo’s very first score of the game was absolute text book.
The ball gets kicked forward from midfield, it’s popped to a runner, it’s popped inside, it’s popped to a runner and Cian Breheny is on target. How do you deal with that? Long kick pass, bang, bang, bang. It’s slick, it’s direct, it’s effective and, time after time, Sligo were finding holes in Roscommon’s defence.
The quartet attack was deadly. Pat Hughes and David Kelly on the inside, the ridiculous Adrian Marren and Mark Breheny on the 45′ (for the most part) and Davey and Ewing off providing energy around the middle third and more numbers in defence. They only needed the four up top though because they used them to create scores. Imagine.
Their attacks were so fast, virtually all or nothing. Look at the shot of the Rosscommon men trying to get back. You can’t move quicker than a kicked ball though and Pat Hughes is all alone with his marker inside the 45′.
This is a nothing high ball in. Except it’s not nothing, it was another way around. It was another dimension and it was a way inside, over the Roscommon defenders and it ended in a Pat Hughes score.
Eventually, the Rossies defenders weren’t sure what to do.
That’s Adrian Marren out on the right wing scoring a point he had no right to be scoring but such was the day he was having that he nailed it anyway from a tight angle, big distance and four defenders around him.
But what on earth are those three guys doing in the full back line? What the hell are the doing?
There are no Sligo attackers in there and they’re not sweeping because there’s no-one there to sweep against. It is just three defenders offering absolutely nothing to the cause and it was largely because Sligo had them at sixes and sevens.
Another long ball (circled) goes in from beyond midfield whilst Sligo are man on man in the forward line.
Roscommon can try as they might to get those men back but Sligo are two v two on the 21′, it’s too late for the extra defenders and the hosts have another easy score.
At a time when defence is prevailing, when teams are putting all their energies into keeping the score down, it’s worth remembering (it’s sad but it’s necessary) that you win games by scoring more than the other team. Armagh for example were dead and buried after a few minutes last week because Donegal came flying out of the blocks and the Orchard had no response. Because they weren’t set up to try and score the most.
Niall Carew and Sligo have set the finest template yet – particularly for the underdog. Be mindful, be cautious, even be conservative if you have to. But don’t forget that, to win these games, you need scores. And finding a way to get them is what the best managers will do.
It’s what Sligo did at the weekend.
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