Author: seamus (Page 7 of 7)

Promotion from the National Football League Division Two, to make a huge effort to retain the Connacht Senior Football Championship, and to qualify for the Super 8 series. Those are the priorities for the Roscommon senior football team for 2018 according to their manager Kevin McStay.
The new look panel, tightening financial parameters, the new fixture list and many other topics came up during a comprehensive account of where the team is with 2017 coming to an end and a very busy 2018 about to begin. The return of many players who were absent last year, new faces on the panel, a new training base in Kiltoom, and the fact that Kevin McStay will also be the Roscommon Junior Football team manager in 2018 are just some of the main points that were covered.
With regard to the panel, Kevin said “There is a pre-season panel of 44. A total of 53 were considered but some lads just couldn’t commit for one reason or another, and one of the biggest disappointments is that Neil Collins will not be able to join us. He started a new job in the USA and I can tell you he is heartbroken that he cannot do it (commit) but he has to forge ahead with his career. I haven’t given up hope about him being back at some stage though”
“That 44 will be reduced to 32 in Mid-January and that will be the national league panel. Out of that will come the championship panel later on. With regard to breakthrough players it is very unlikely that we will have another Brian Stack or Caoileann Fitzmaurice because the team is young anyway and there are not any gaps in terms of age. It will take young players a year or two, or even three to break on to the senior team now because of the work that needs to be done”
“With regard to injuries there is good news about Ultan Harney. We got a very positive scan (back injury) this week and we are upbeat about that. He is back in training. He is looking at mid-January to return, but I am looking at mid-February because we do not want him to get injured again. Cathal Compton and Fergal Lennon are back in full training. Any other injuries we have are very minor”
“Younger players who have come on to the panel and whom we have been very impressed with are Tadgh McKenna, Ciaran Lennon, Ross Timothy and Finbar Cregg. A lot of the players who had played all our games last year were given an extra month off but all of them are back now, Brian Stack is a special case and we are not going to see him until the middle of the league campaign. He is also involved with DCU in the Sigerson”
“Seanie McDermott has committed for another year but his new business is going well and we will have to see if he is able to commit. He has his living to look after so we will see what happens there. The number of third level committed players has reduced significantly. It was 14 or 15 last year, it’s only 7 this year which is positive and manageable. Of course we are without our Michael Glavey’s players as well”
Kevin says that the players who were not on the panel last year and who came back into the fold this year again are making a huge effort. “Peter Domican is back, Cathal and Finbar Cregg and Ronan, Conor and Niall Daly are back and we are really pleased with their effort, attitude and energy. I am really pleased with their attitude but the real test will come when we pick our first serious team and then we will know whether they are here for the long haul, but it’s all very positive so far. We are really pleased with the early effort and we think we are a good bit ahead of where we were at this time last year. I also want to mention Padraig Kelly who played against Offaly in a challenge game the other night and scored 2-2 which is brilliant for him and it is great to see lads putting in an effort and putting their hands up”
Gone from last years’ panel are Cian Connolly, Brian Murtagh, Dave Rooney, Thomas Corcoran and Darren O’Malley for various reasons.
Roscommon have not taken part in the Connacht Junior Football championship for the past number of years but that will change in 2018 and Kevin McStay himself will be the team manager! He explained his reasoning behind his decision to play in the junior competition this year. “It will be very important in terms of the development side of the panel and we have agreed with the county board how we are going to go about it. We are going to put a big effort into it and try to produce a decent team in the knowledge that there has to be a place for players to develop. The junior championship is played May to July so it is played off very quickly and we will have a real go at that”
The Roscommon senior backroom team will be much the same as last year but more of an emphasis will be put on nutrition this coming year’ “We made a new appointment , Tom Coleman, who will look after the nutrition side of things and we are very happy with that. I am hoping that Ronan Rogers can continue with our performance analysis but everyone else is still in place”
It is a really busy time for the team as Kevin explained. “We have three challenge games in December, we have six games in January and four in February so it’s a mad schedule but I say ‘mad’ in a nice way. The players will love it but for managers it’s very tough. Any schedule we (managers) had in years gone by is gone out the window. Basically it’s a game every single week and if any player misses out on pre-season then they are in big trouble”
The controversial “month for the clubs” in April will be respected by Kevin and his backroom team” We have agreed that the players will return to their clubs in April for a month if we are not in the league final. If we are in the final it will be three weeks. I understand that two rounds of the club championship will be played in April along with at least one league game”
There was a long discussion about finance at the county convention and budgets are central to any discussion about the senior team and preparations “Finance is the biggest and most contentious issue that I have in this job. We have agreed and signed off on our budgets for the year with the county board and you will have seen that there was a big reduction in costs from 2016 to 2017 and the costs will be down again in 2018”
“Everyone agrees that budgets must be cut, but it presents the biggest problem that we have as a management. On the one hand the county board and everyone else in the county is pushing for Roscommon to be a force. But if you want to be a top 8 team then you have to have resources. I will say it again this year. We do not own a bulb or a blade of grass to train on and it is a huge issue. Put simply, we have nowhere to train. Now in fairness to the Chairman Seamus Sweeney and the St Brigid’s club, we have entered an agreement that we will be able to train in Kilttom for the next three years and that’s signed off and done, and we are thrilled about that. We had to do something”
“But overall the financial situation is dire and we are only a small county and the situation is only going to get worse because we simply do not have the resources that the bigger counties have. I am predicting a major crisis in the GAA in the future because the smaller counties like Roscommon are simply going to run out of resources. Unless they completely change the financial model of the GAA then I cannot see the smaller counties being able to compete or survive”
Then we came to the objectives for the year ahead. “We did a lot of work last year on trying to develop a healthy culture within the group based on energy, enthusiasm and honesty we have more work to do on that score and we will do that. We have to to do far more work on strength and conditioning. We have to get bigger and stronger, we have to improve our tackling, we have to improve our kick outs, and improve at midfield. We have plenty of areas to improve but we are very close now to building a very strong panel. When you add the players that have come back, to the players that were blooded last year we have are building a very formidable group”
“My objectives are that at the end of the league we will have a very strong championship match day 24. The match day 24 will be very hard to get into this year and that’s for sure. There will be major competition for places this year. We have a lot of very good players on the panel. We want to close the gap further on Galway and Mayo and both of them are in division one. We need to build on what we have done in 2017. We feel we can definitely compete with Galway and we need to bridge the gap to Mayo. That gap is going on for far too long and we need to be competitive with them. So promotion from division two in the league, we go flat out to retain our Connacht championship and then qualify for the Super 8 one way or the other. Those are our goals”
“With regard to the year ahead, if we can beat Meath and Tipperary in the league, and Leitrim in the championship we will be well on our way to having a good 2018. If we win those three games everything else will look after itself. We want to hit the ground running in the early part of the year this time because last years’ league campaign was very difficult and we have the panel to tackle that this time” he concluded.

(From The Roscommon People)

Hundreds of people gathered in the autumn sunshine in the south Roscommom village on Brideswell last Saturday afternoon to unveil a statue and memorial to one of the areas’ most celebrated personalities, the legendary Gerry O’Malley, whose life as a Roscommon footballer and hurler and as a top class agricultural advisor was recalled at a special event organised by a local committee set up to organise the memorial.
In the many speeches heard on the day, Gerry’s modesty and his reluctance for attention and the spotlight ,despite his achievements, were a constant theme and the respect and esteem in which he was held was obvious from the speeches and the huge attendance on the day.
Also in attendance were Gerry O Malley’s wife Mary, his sons Niall and Conor and Gerry’s grandchildren and local relatives. Local people, friends and neighbours, former team mates and opponents, TD’s Senators, local councillors, community leaders and people from all over the country joined the organising committee, GAA officials from the county, and many members from Gerry’s two local clubs Four Roads and St Brigid’s on the day.
MC for the day was Frankie Donnelly, and the special guest was well known RTE Radio commentator and life-long friend of Gerry O’Malley Brian Carthy.
Welcoming everyone to the event, the Chairman of the organising committee Charlie Finneran said that the idea for the memorial came about on the 1st of September 2016 which is Gerry O Malley’s birthday. He said that he visited Gortaganny, where the local people there had erected a memorial to Dermot Earley and he sought advice from Martin Walshe and the local committee and also from the Earley family.
Charlie also sought advice from Tom O Se who is the brother of the late Paidi O Se who was one of the organisers of his memorial in County Kerry. Then on the 5th October 2016 the first public meeting took place and a committee was set up. “We wanted to honour Gerry O’Malley in a fitting way and something he deserved and here we are today 36 meetings later” he said.
“We engaged in fund raising that was very successful and one thing I would have to say was that we had no problems when it came to raising funds. We had our own draw and we had sponsorships and other donations and grants” He paid tribute to all the people who helped with the fund raising efforts and especially to those who had passed away in the interim and the people outside the committee who also sold tickets and helped out.
He paid tribute to the O’Malley family who he said were 100% behind the idea from the start. He mentioned Gerry O Malley’s three local GAA clubs Four Roads, where he played hurling, St Patrick’s Knockcroghery where he played football in the early years, and then St Brigid’s the club set up in his local area at a later stage.
Charlie also mentioned Garry O’Malley’s work as an agriculture advisor, a job that he loved and was one of the most sought after advisors in the tillage sector in his work mainly in North Co Dublin but also before that in Roscommon, Ferbane and Gorey Co Wexford. He also paid tribute to the local councillors for their work and to Roscommon county council for their input as well. He also praised the work of sculptor Seamus Connolly.
Niall O’Mallley (son) spoke on behalf of the O’Malley family and he told the attendance that the family were “blown away” by what had been done and he thanked the local committee and everyone that had been involved. He said not a lot of people could realise how much planning was involved. He said that the memorial was in keeping with his late father’s personality. “It’s just in the right spot in the village- it’s not too prominent and it’s not hidden either” he said. “He was a very modest man and he never wanted to talk about his own exploits in the field he was far happier talking about current players and current matches” he said.
Michael Conroy, a former work colleague and friend of Gerry O’Malley spoke in detail about his work as an agriculture advisor over many decades and he said it was very important that the job he loved doing was also included in the memorial.
Chief Executive of Roscommon county council Eugene Cummins praised the local community for their work and said he was glad that the council could do their bit to help out and he praised the work of Majella Hunt and Diarmuid Mac Donnacha in that regard.
Secretary of Roscommon County GAA board Brian Carroll told the crowd that he had become a personal friend of the late Gerry O’Malley as a young guard posted to North Co Dublin. “I visited him many times and called to him most weeks. We had great chats about matches over the years and his power of recall was amazing about incidents and matches and dates etc. He had a huge passion for Roscommon, for Four Roads and St Brigid’s and he never lost it even to his dying day. He is certainly one of the greatest Roscommon people I ever met” he said. He also recalled that Gerry gave him a county senior winners’ medal from 1959 won with St Brigid’s. “When you pass on you can give it someone else he told me” he said.
Special guest Brian Carthy spoke of his great friendship with what he called “a special man”. He said Gerry O’Malley was an “icon” of Gaelic Games and a man of huge faith. “He said to me a few days before he died “Brian I am ready to cross the Jordan” he said. “He was a giant on the hurling and football field but he was a modest and unassuming man who never forgot his roots” he said
He said that Gerry would have been so proud that the people from his local village would have come together to honour him. “He did not like attention or the limelight but it is only right that he is honoured here today because he was very proud of where he came from”
Brian Carthy recalled his travels around the country over many years to matches and said that Gerry had a kind word for everyone he met young and old. He said that even though he suffered ill health for the last couple of years of his life he showed remarkable resilience courage and a strong faith though those difficult times. He said that Gerry O’Malley loved his family and was proud of his sons and his grandchildren.
He recalled the day that his beloved St Brigid’s club won the All Ireland title in 2013 in Croke Park. “I don’t think I ever saw Gerry O’Malley as excited as he was that day. The club brought him into the dressing room after the match and the respect that he was shown by the club that day is something that they should be very proud of” he said
Brian Carthy concluded by telling the attendance that it was a huge honour to be asked to preside at the unveiling of the memorial and statue and he praised the work of the local committee who brought the project to fruition.

(Article for Roscommon People)