‘We are where we want to be’ insists Dowd

Mark Dowd is in great form. He would prefer to be on the training ground, but he gets that talking to the media ahead of big games comes with the territory.

Having been part of management teams that won Connacht titles in 2010 and 2019, he understands the importance of Roscommon getting their hands on the Nestor Cup from time to time.

Now, as captain of the ship, he will lead his native county into a provincial final where there is expectation, something Roscommon teams have often been crippled by. But Dowd doesn’t get a sense that his players will be paralyzed by fear when Diarmuid Murtagh leads the Rossies out for Sunday’s Connacht final against Galway.

“That’s irrelevant to this year’s team. We had some good wins in the league. There was one game (against Dublin) where we didn’t perform, so I get where people are coming from.

“But we took a lot of learnings from that game. We went back to what served us best earlier in the league. We brought that into our championship preparations for New York and again for Mayo. It will be no different for Galway.

“We can’t control what happens or is being said outside. It’s what happens inside our own bubble that we have to worry about,” he emphasised.

In keeping with his character, he says that he didn’t get “too high to get back down to earth” in the aftermath of the ten-point victory against Mayo. Roscommon were back training on the Wednesday evening after Castlebar, shifting their focus to a provincial decider against a team they haven’t beaten at home in the championship for 36 years.

Again, Dowd doesn’t see the relevance in that historical stat when weighing up Roscommon’s prospects on Sunday.

“I can’t see why it (Hyde Park) would be a factor. It’s another game — you’re probably sick of hearing it from me.

“It’s brilliant to be playing the game in the Hyde as opposed to going to Salthill, especially for our supporters. There will be a huge crowd of Rossies at it.

“A lot of our lads have played with their clubs in the Hyde, they’ve played a lot of county games there, so it’s brilliant for us to be going there,” he highlighted.

Roscommon’s performances this season point to a team that are fitter and laden with speed, something Dowd admits there was plenty of focus on ahead of competitive action in January.

“We put a big emphasis on our fitness early in the year — we wanted to get a good level of conditioning into the lads. I feel we’ve done that. Our finishers that are coming on, they know there’s a responsibility on them to push on.

“Getting more speed into the team is something we would have identified. We would have had a lot of very good quality players, from both a physical and skillful point of view, in previous years. But with the way the game is gone, speed is huge.

“You have to be able to get up and down the pitch. We would have been looking at that in the club championship — quick players that could come in and do a job for us,” he explained.

Add that to the scoring potential that was unleashed either side of half time in Castlebar, and it’s fair to say that you have a very potent cocktail.

“A big thing we’re always going after is that we give the ball to the man in the best position. We’re looking for that score as opposed to it being a 50-50 chance and giving back possession. In our first couple of attacks against Mayo, we overturned ball. We gifted them some of those turnovers. There’s a big learning from that,” he agreed.

At the start of the season, heading to Castlebar with just one player from county and Connacht champions, St. Brigid’s, in the starting 15 would have been unthinkable. But Dowd is keen to stress that it’s about the best 15 players representing Roscommon.

“The way it is in our squad, they’re Roscommon players. There’s no mention of clubs or anything like that. When players come in here, it’s 35 lads training and those who put up their hand are chosen.

“The lads that are putting up their hand and aren’t making the 26 are driving it on as well. We can’t do anything about outside noise, it’s in every county. We just get on about our business.” 

The manager admits that leaning on those successes in 2010 and 2019 can be useful ahead of Sunday’s final.

“You look at 2010, we came up against a team in Sligo who had taken out Mayo and Galway. We knew that we had to be on top of our game to get a performance, and we were.

“It’s the same for any big game, like the ones in the league, we had to be on top of our game. If we weren’t at 100 per cent, it wasn’t going to happen for us.

“Our thing is being in the game in the last five or ten minutes, that’s what we’re chasing all the time. If we’re not doing that, it’s on us. If we are, we’re giving ourselves a great chance to go and win that game.” 

But Dowd knows that Galway will present a formidable challenge. They’re coming to Hyde Park — a ground they look playing in — under the radar, and that makes them formidable opponents next weekend.

“They’ve a good track record in the Hyde. They have huge experience. They’ve been in All-Ireland finals, they’ve won the last four Connacht titles. They won’t be short on confidence coming here.

“They’re also coming off the back of a performance that they wouldn’t have been happy with down in Leitrim. They’ll respond to that.

“But, after this game, both teams will be going into an All-Ireland Series. We’re going to be meeting these sorts of teams, so our performance levels will have to improve.

“Sunday is a chance to win some silverware. If we’re in a position to do that going down the home straight, that’s brilliant. If not, we’ll take our learnings and move on because we’ll have another big game coming two weeks after that.” 

With a number of young players lining out in a Connacht senior football final for the first time, there is a fear that they’ll underperform, but Dowd doesn’t expect his players to be overawed by Sunday’s occasion.

“We went down to Kerry, we played Armagh and Donegal at home — none of the lads were overawed by those occasions. The great thing about youth is that they don’t have any fear.

“Even though they are young, they have a lot of football played between Sigerson, minor and U-20.” 

And yet, on the eve of such a big match, Dowd smiles when it’s put to him that his maiden year at the helm has better than he could have imagined so far. But his management principles have been paramount to the feel-good factor around the team. In other words, there’s life after Sunday, regardless of the result.

“I’ve never really set targets. We wanted a team with quality, high fitness levels and one that could play to a certain system. We could have been doing all those things and losing games.

“We’ve gone into games and performed well. We’re in the position we’re in now. But we’re grounded enough to know that if we don’t perform, we won’t get the results. The way I’d put it is that we are where we want to be. After Sunday, there’s a bigger picture,” he concluded.