The most honest manager in the GAA
Promotion in any of the Allianz leagues is no mean feat. It takes good football,some luck and more than just the fifteen players who line out on any given day to secure the results required for ascension.
To achieve back-to-back progression up the Allianz League ladder is almost unheard of, but if any man is able for the challenge it’s current Roscommon boss John Evans.
The Kerry native led Tipperary from Division Four to Division Two in his spell with the Premier, while the Rossies can look forward to top flight football next season after finishing the Division two campaign just behind table toppers Down.
They meet this Sunday in the Allianz League final-a year after Roscommon secured the Division Three title with a 1-17 to 0-18 win over Cavan.
Many supporters,both inside and outside the county, would have felt that a year or two in the second tier would help the county bridge the gap to current Connacht pacesetters Mayo. Evans dismisses such opinion
‘Survival in Division Two was a negative to me. There’s a step above that and it’s called promotion and the way to achieve that is real good planning and winning your games and give your best. This thing about consolidating your position and staying in your division,you know to me that’s rubbish.’
‘When i was in Tipperary I learned one huge lesson going from Division Four to Division Three and then to Division Two. That was consolidation in Division Two was the wrong approach. We lose a few games by a point and another few by a couple of points and we lost eventually to relegation by a single point.’
‘You have to kick on and we didn’t. We paid the price by going back down to Division Three. That was a big lesson. So when Roscommon got to Division Two we kicked on.’
So how is Evans feeling ahead of the league final now that their primary aim has been achieved. Is the game a chance to boost his sides confidence after a fruitful Spring or can it be used as a highly competitive challenge game ahead of the Championship opener against London next month?
‘We’ve achieved our goal and we’re happy where we are in getting to Division One. It was our prime objective and having achieved that the final itself is just the two promoted teams. Over the last three weeks we ourselves have been preparing for championship and we trained hard and certainly next Sunday would not be our priority.’
‘But saying that we have a good squad going up there-we allowed all our games go ahead in Roscommon and we picked up a few knocks and bruises. It’s championship we’re looking at-when you achieve your goal you have to look to the next one.’
Roscommon just suffered two losses from their seven leagues games in Division Two, and beat Sunday’s league opponents by 1-15 to 1-11 in their meeting in Newry. The county have been in the midst of a productive spell at underage but have often failed to deliver in the league or championship over the last number of years. Evans feels that it took just a little fine-tuning to get Roscommon to their current level,
‘It takes a lot of effort. You need the cc’s underneath the bonnet as well, and the cc’s were lying dormant. The talent was there but the fire had to be rekindled and the direction and the skill had to be developed.’
‘When you develop the skill factor it gives you new belief in what you can do and once we increased that and improved our management there is a lot of factors to the success. It takes a whole lot of organisation and it takes the county board to back the management the whole way too. When you have a situation like that you can achieve a lot.’
Evans plans for Sunday have been given a boost with a number of the U21 panel back in harness after last week’s disappointing loss to Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi final. The Connacht side have been praised for their open style of football while Evans has seen his side rack up and impressive 7-99 on their way to promotion. How would the former Garda define his approach to games
‘We got out and play the game in an attractive way. I make no bones about the way we play. That’s the way we set up. If teams are vulnerable we’ll score and if they have good defences they’ll keep the score down. The big thing with all that is that the team is capable of putting up the score. On any given day you meet different systems. You meet different game plans so you have to be prepared to go with the flow.’
Evans feels that discussion around changing GAA and football to try and rid the game of defensive football is premature. Detractors of teams that play a defensive system were given plenty of ammunition for redrawing GAA rules after the Dublin-Derry league game in Croke Park last month.
Evans feels that teams have a right to line out however they feel and that players and managers need to come up with ways of counter-acting so called ‘defensive football’,
‘If you put Kerry and Dublin together then you’ll have a very open game. If you put two other sides together then it will be different. All we do is mind my our shop and be ready for the opposition.’
‘I don’t see any panic, and the game of chess as I call it when two defensive sides meet up, that can often be very interesting. It’s foolish to think high scores will win the game all the time. There’s defenders there for a reason and a defensive system for a reason and there’s attackers there for a reason.’
‘I just think you’re reaching to the naive people if you think by changing this and that you’re going to have more scores to make the game more attractive. I think the game is quite physical but referees have settled down and they’re handling the game much better.
Sunday’s game is the second year in succession that Roscommon will be in a league finale while for Jim McCorry silverware would represent a major boost to a team that has many doubters as to its true quality. The Ulster side must wait until June 7th for their championship opener against Derry so what type of game is Evans expecting
‘You’re in Croke Park and it’s where everyone wants to play. That is why the Allianz League is great for developing players and and if we can get a few more players into the heat of the action and develop them further for championship then this game will be a big benefit to the Roscommon panel.
‘It’s a game that we have achieved our goal before it and it’s hard to see what the frame of mind of the players will be ahead of it. After 3 weeks of hard training I’d be more interested in what’s further ahead. It’s Croke Park,we’re interested in silverware and we’ll give it our best shot .’
Allianz Football League Division Two Final
Roscommon V Down Croke Park Sunday 2pm
