It's time for some perspective and look at the bigger picture

Now could be a good time to look for some perspective.

Let’s zoom out and check in on the bigger picture. Five games into the national league, are we happy with how things are going? Yes. Very.

Back in January, before the first ball was thrown in below in Killarney, what were we hoping for from this league campaign?

Division One survival was the most obvious one. We’re not there yet, but we’re close.

We wanted to see the team play with a renewed vigour and see an upturn in our attacking speed and style. This has been delivered on in spades, even allowing for Sunday’s flat performance against Dublin.

Also, I was very keen to see if we could get some of our best players to raise their games to All-Star level displays. We can’t know that until championship time, but the early-season signs of Daire Cregg, Diarmuid Murtagh, Enda Smith, Senan Lambe and now Colm Neary are promising.

Back to Division One survival. We may or may not have more work to do on that one. We’ll know before our next game. If Dublin beat Armagh on the Saturday night in Croker, then we’ll all be that bit more relaxed for the arrival of Donegal to town the following day. If Armagh beat them, however, then you’d have to think that Roscommon will need to get a result from either Donegal or Mayo.

Sunday in the Hyde was a low point in this league. It was a poor game. Dublin ran up a good score, but I felt we offered up plenty of opportunities to score against them, even when we were playing so poorly. You can see why they’re having their own troubles.

My final line last week was — “Beware the off-day”. Every team has at least one in the league campaign. The generous analysis of Roscommon’s performance on Sunday would be to put it down to just that and expect that we’ll be back to normal business in a couple of weeks' time.

More so than most other teams, we have always shown a huge disparity between the “ceiling” of our best performances and the “floor” of our worst. Many managers have come and gone and been perplexed by how our “floor” could go so low. Sunday was more evidence of the same.

The best teams, even when they are not “at it”, still generally remain competitive. We tend to drop off a cliff when we’re not "at it". That has been the lie of the land for years.

We’re used to constantly having to work fierce hard and claw our way up to match the top teams. We do it very well, as we’ve done in the first four rounds of the league this year.

Then, at some point, nauturally, we begin to feel like we belong at this level and the mind can begin to wander to what can bring on the next step up in our performance. Maybe a player begins to think he needs to take more plays to get involved in the game more, or the team thinks they should try some more advanced kickout strategies.

All fine in theory, but we subsequently lose the focus on the grit and fight that got us into this position in the first place.

It’s a sobering lesson and I’m not sure we’ve ever really learned enough from it. I’d expect though, that we’ll see a much more fiery Roscommon against Donegal. We’ll be “at it”.

Funnily enough, the team could take some confidence when looking back at Sunday’s game. There’s no doubting we were off the pace all over the pitch, but yet we still created more than enough chances to make it a very close game. Had our scoring efficiency been anywhere close to levels we’d reached in previous games, then I reckon we’d have been there or thereabouts at the end.

LACKING CONVICTION

Our shooting reflected our general play — too slow and ponderous, lacking conviction. You’d accept wides to an extent, but we dropped way too many efforts short.

It was interesting to see a few players who showed up well, in spite of the insipid performance overall. Senan Lambe was chief among them. He’s the first name mentioned when I talk to many supporters about our league so far. He has impressed throughout and was our best player on Sunday.

If there’s a dirty ball to be won, Lambe is likely to be there. He’s growing in confidence with each game, taking on more and more, and I hope his fine point on Sunday is a sign of more to come. We need scoring contributions from our wing-backs/midfielders.

Dylan Ruane and Colm Neary also impressed me. Ruane continues to play the link role between defence and attack very well. In simple terms, if Roscommon had used him last year, I think we’d have fared much better.

I made the point then that we were playing with too many out and out forwards. Ruane would have improved our transition play and given more ammunition to our shooters. He’s getting a good chance at it this year and is definitely grasping it.

I think Neary can grow into a serious weapon for us. His tackling and thirst for turnovers are fantastic. His top speed is electric. At one stage in the second half, he streaked away from Eoin Murchan on a run up the middle of the field to set up an attack. Bearing in mind we’d struggled all day to deal with Murchan’s pace when he attacked, it was the mark of a really pacey ball carrier.

We struggled in midfield and probably missed Conor Ryan. Keith Doyle could have been taken off at half time but, to be fair, he rebounded well in the second half to make a few big plays. It’s worth persevering with that midfield partnership once Ryan is fit to return.

It was good to get the couple of Brigid’s outfield players on to the pitch. Understandably, they seemed rusty and not at their best, but the game will bring them on, and I’d expect them to improve the next day.

Conor Hand is an obvious replacement for Darragh Heneghan, although I’d still like to see him at wing-back. Where best to position Ruaidhrí Fallon is another question. I don’t think midfield is the answer. I’d say wing-back as well.

With Brian Stack and Ben O’Carroll yet to feature, it’s a good sign of strong depth in the panel. Conor Carroll, like his clubmates out the field, didn’t have his best day either but he too will improve for having that game under his belt. He surely has a fight on his hands for that number one spot though as Aaron Brady really impressed in the first four games.

Just like one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one snowdrop doesn’t make a winter. Sunday’s defeat isn’t the end of the world or even the dawning of winter.

It’s one defeat. Let’s get back up on the horse and go again.