This was their moment in the sun and they weren’t content to take it sitting in the shade.
Roscommon are headed for the Super 8s and they’re not looking back. They may have lost the Connacht final but they didn’t let that narrow defeat define their season and they’re back on track and exactly where they want to be now.
Bigger challenges lie ahead in Dublin and Donegal and Cork or Tyrone but this, this was a good day’s work. Two relatively evenly matched teams, Roscommon and Armagh went blow for blow in O’Moore Park Portlaoise but refreshingly, each blow was an attacking blow.
They both went out to score more than the other team and what transpired was a cracking game of football where there was more ambitious kick passing than there was neutral hand-passing.
That’s always a good thing, that made this game a thriller to watch. Eventual man-of-the-match Enda Smith was the difference between the sides. On top of ruling the skies as he always does the Boyle club man showed once again that he really has perfected that attacking midfield role now.
44 scores in the game, 34 from play, you can keep your World Cup! https://t.co/4LTsn2Wi2l
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 7, 2018
With long, late runs, he put himself in finishing positions for the two game-turning goals and you don’t need to give that man a second chance.
And the Rossies were dancing.
Kevin McStay was giving it socks on the sideline and the players were lapping it up.
The supporters, they had made the O’Moore Park pitch their own and no steward was going to tell them otherwise. Cork Tyrone threw in at 5.00 and the players from those sides were out for their warm-ups about half an hour prior to that.
The Roscommon fans weren’t budding, they were still basking in the glory of the golden sunshine and their team’s golden display.
It didn’t matter if Mickey Harte figures of eight in mind for his men, it wouldn’t have mattered if he had 100 cones laid out because they were only getting a small corner of they pitch and they’d have to make do with that.
https://twitter.com/Woolberto/status/1015622427475406848
As for Cork’s team photo, don’t be surprised if a few stray Roscommon heads pop up in Sportsfile shots.
https://twitter.com/Woolberto/status/1015622201884672000
But they’ll be smiling anyway, there’s no doubting that much.
