‘The ambition in Roscommon Gaels brought me here’ — Dowd

As Roscommon Gaels prepare to have another crack at ending a 20-year wait to lift the Fahey Cup, their manager Mark Dowd believes that the club’s current group of players have moved to the precipice of carving their own slice of history as a result of the ambition within the group.

When Dowd was appointed manager of the club’s flagship side late last year, it was seen as a statement of intent. A man who had the experience and silverware to boot, he wouldn’t have been short on offers from clubs across the region.

However, Dowd, who was part of the successful Roscommon minor football team management in 2006, stated that he saw an ambition coursing through the club that convinced him that taking the reins was the correct next step in a burgeoning management career.

“One thing I look for in any team that I try to be involved in or want to be involved in would be a buy-in from them. That they are ambitious, have a plan, and want to know where they want to be at the end of the year. It can’t be just a case of ticking boxes.

“Once I had the initial talks, I got a good vibe from the club. The committee that was there, there were a lot of fresh faces. What they are planning to do and what they are currently at, that boded well for the future.

“Roscommon Gaels is an ambitious club, it has an ambitious committee there, and ambitious players on top of that, so those first impressions were positive.

“For myself, I’m only out the road so, in terms of travel, it helped a lot as well in those circumstances, especially with a young family at home. So, a lot of boxes were ticked when I talked to them here,” he revealed.

It is easy to see why Dowd found the Roscommon Gaels such an attractive proposition. The club wasn’t a million miles away from the top of the mountain, having reached the semi-final stages in 2023, 2022 and 2021.

Having lost to the eventual champions in their past two semi-final defeats — last year’s defeat against St. Brigid’s being particularly chastening — the Gaels were firmly in the chasing pack heading into this season’s campaign.

Consequently, Dowd was keen for his side to improve across the board, adding that those extra gains accrued this year helped them summon all their collective might to turn around a four-point deficit late in normal time against Michael Glaveys on Sunday week last.

Reflecting on that semi-final success, he admitted that the Gaels may have been swept away in seasons gone, crediting the attitude of the players for digging deep and sending the contest to extra time.

“With any team I try to be involved with, number one, I wanted to get a committed panel. Number two, we put plans in place, as in what way we want to play, our defensive set-up, better fitness levels on our strength and conditioning side of things.

“Once all that kind of fell into place, we were able to see what kind of direction we wanted to go going forward, and the way we wanted to play.

“Getting lads back around the panel that might have been missing to county teams alongside getting injuries cleared up as well, once we started getting all those together, we started putting plans into place.

“The other side of it then is that the Gaels would have been in these positions — even against the likes of Glaveys the last day — and they mightn’t have come through. They might have fallen short at the end. We started to build a bit of a mentality work there with the lads. We really wanted a game like that, and that will stand to us for Sunday.

“The lads know that they are not too far away. Small little changes this year compared to different years. Maybe, there is a small bit more belief. Then obviously there’s the quality of players that we have.

“Every year you’re going to lose one or two to travel or work, whatever it may be. However, this year we had a good year. We only ended up losing Brian Kelly and Richard Hughes to travel, but the rest wanted to stick around. Guys that might have had it in their heads about heading away for the summer, that didn’t happen. They stayed around for the year and that gave us that confidence going into the championship,” he explained.

Despite a large cohort of players away with intercounty commitments, Roscommon Gaels started the year brightly, winning eight out of 11 league games.

They subsequently progressed to an O’Rourke Cup decider. When St. Brigid’s secured an emphatic triumph, however, many felt it was the Kiltoom-based side’s championship race to lose. For Dowd, there was no sense of panic following that 4-13 to 0-7 reversal.

“I don’t think it was a big setback to us to be honest. Brigid’s were missing a few, we were missing a good few ourselves. Probably what we were missing was some of the more experienced lads that day. We were put under pressure but when you look back on it, we had a lot of young players and Brigid’s were flying it as well during the league.

“We built it steadily from there. I think we took a lot out of that game. We took encouragement from the league that we got to the final. We picked five or six things that we could definitely work on and improve on.

“In one way it was great to get that game, we could have maybe finished third in the league, not reached a league final and think our league went okay and be happy enough with it before we went to championship. But we got good lessons out of that league final, so it boded well for us,” he explained.

The former Ballaghaderreen manager is proud of how his side came through a competitive championship, believing that this year’s county senior football championship has been ultra-competitive.

“It is probably one of the most competitive (club championships). I would say ourselves and Galway in Connacht are the two most competitive club championships. You see it in Roscommon, it could be any team that comes out of it any year.

“All Roscommon club teams have done well when they have come out of Connacht, so I think it bodes well if you can get out of Roscommon. But we are a long way from there yet. There’s a massive challenge to try and overcome on Sunday,” he concluded.