Dunning delighted with character shown by young Rossies
Noel Dunning was delighted with his side's response to adversity against Mayo.
Roscommon U-20 football manager Noel Dunning has hailed his side’s character after his side recovered from the setback of conceding three goals inside the opening 20 minutes to earn a draw against Mayo in the opening round of the Connacht U-20 Football Championship on Wednesday evening.
Goals from Niall Hurley, Finbar McLoughlin and Darragh Beirne left Roscommon with a mountain to climb but, led by Shane McGinley who ended up with 1-8, the home side rallied to trail by three points at the break before restoring parity late in the game.
“In the end, we’re probably a bit disappointed with the draw, which is a measure of how well we did to come back into the game. Just like Sligo here last year, we gifted Mayo a few goals and gave them a massive headstart.
“We had talked about that beforehand, but we showed bags of character. You have to hand it to the players, they never gave up and they kept plugging away. Play by play, minute by minute, we kept at it, and we got our reward in the end. But it could have been more,” he reflected.
The manager was also delighted with the strength-in-depth within the panel that saw his substitutes turn the tide in Roscommon’s favour when they were introduced.
“They (the subs) all made an impact. We’ve been stressing to these lads all along how good the panel is. We have a panel of 24 and there are another 14 guys outside of that who want to be in there as well. They’re driving it on together.
“We knew that whichever lads we brought on, they’d give us the impact we were looking for. We didn’t expect to use some of them that early. But when they got the opportunity, they took it. Now we have some pleasant headaches for the next day,” he felt.
