Earley: Rossies’ rise can continue

FORMER Roscommon star Paul Earley is confident the Connacht champions can become the county’s first team to put back-to-back provincial titles together since 1991.

The TV3 pundit, who was on that team who claimed the Nestor Cup two years in succession, believes they are capable of bridging the gap because of their fearlessness in the province.

“They’re a younger team than we were,” said Earley. “Both teams have had success at underage level but we had our fair share of Connacht finals woes and had been around since 1986.

“Whereas, they went from losing by 20 points to Mayo one year to winning Connacht the next. They’re still in development mode and there’s no reason to believe any of them won’t be playing in three or four years.

“They’ve been brought up having no fear of Galway or Mayo. They regularly beat them whereas a lot of the older players were scarred by the bigger teams. I’d give them a good chance of winning Connacht again if they overcome Sunday’s game.”

There was similar hype about Sligo after they beat Mayo and Galway last year but Earley isn’t worried the possibility of Roscommon arrogance.

“Any complacency or overconfidence this weekend and they’ll be turned over. The difference between Sligo last year and Roscommon this year is that Sligo has beaten the two superpowers.

“Kevin Walsh would have done his best to keep their feet on the ground but the supporters were already talking of getting to Croke Park on the August bank holiday weekend before they’d beaten Roscommon.

“The same expectation is not there in Roscommon this year. They also didn’t perform well in the league final so nobody’s getting too excited.”

Earley is impressed with the amount of resources Fergal McDonnell now has. “There are seven changes to the team for Sunday from the one that won the Connacht title last year and it’s my view the team has been strengthened because of it.”