Dineen sure Rossies can buck trend

Preview: Dublin v Roscommon

It’s not that they travel to Breffni Park for this evening’s All-Ireland U21 semi-final under a cloud of pessimism.

Far from it.

But when the U21 selector and former Roscommon senior forward considers the opposition, back to back Leinster champions Dublin, an alarming result leaps into the mind.

Earlier this year Roscommon arranged a challenge game with their midland neighbours Westmeath. The Rossies were promptly beaten out the gate. Fast forward some weeks later to Leinster final day in early April and that same Westmeath team was subsequently beaten by six points by Dublin, who now face Roscommon.

It’s never advisable to read too much into another team’s resultsbut the underdogs tag would legitimately appear to rest at Roscommon’s door as they bid to reach a first All-Ireland final at this grade since 1982 and just their fifth ever.

“Westmeath gave us a trimming earlier in the year and Dublin beat them,” noted Dineen.

“This championship has shown that you can’t read too much into challenges but Dublin will have their homework done on us. They’ll be looking for a good start, like all Dublin teams, but a lot of our lads know their players so it should make for an interesting game.”

Roscommon’s most decorated U21 player, Donie Shine, will be most familiar to the Dubs. Shine is already a key player with the county senior team and back in February won the O’Byrne Cup with DCU alongside current Dublin U21 defender Johnny Cooper.

Shine, along with James McKeague, Niall Carty and Paul Garvey, are the four players selected who also started the 2006 All-Ireland MFC final win over Kerry.

The bookies aren’t favouring a repeat All-Ireland success four years on with Roscommon priced only marginally less than rank outsiders Tipperary to win this competition outright.

Dublin are clear favourites but have been less than convincing in their Leinster campaign.

They required extra-time to overcome both Louth and Carlow and while the scoreline reported a six point victory over Westmeath in the final it masked the reality of a late smash and grab raid that yielded 1-2 for the Dubs in the closing minutes.

In truth, that game should have gone to extra-time too.

For Roscommon’s part they weren’t overly convincing in a 1-6 to 0-4 Connacht final win over Sligo having earlier defeated Mayo.

“It was impossible to play against the wind,” said Dineen in mitigation of their display against Sligo.

“Yes, there were a certain amount of nerves on both sides but I don’t think people appreciate how bad the conditions were.”

Winning that day was all that counted.

“It was brilliant for the players,” continued Dineen. “It was our aim at the start of the year and it was great to get over that hurdle having come so close in recent years.

“I’d say our supporters were relieved more than anything else. We were back training on the Monday after and we started concentrating on the Dublin game pretty quickly.

“We’ve parked the Connacht title.

“We just want to stay on the horse now and see how far we can go.”