Sligo primed for action as waiting game ends

Seventy-seven days the Sligo footballers have waited, the 33rd county to enter the championship arena.

Four counties will already be looking to 2016 by the time Sligo step onto Markievicz Park shortly before 7pm on Saturday and manager Niall Carew says their last competitive outing against Armagh on April 5 is all but a distant memory now. Truth be told, its been a long and arduous 11-weeks.

The Kilkenny hurlers, somewhat fittingly, hold the honour of being last into the arena on Sunday afternoon, 12-weeks on from their relegation play-off win over Clare in the league.

“It is hard to believe we are only making our championship bow this weekend, especially when you consider some teams will have two games played and have exited the championship before we even kick a ball,” noted Carew.

Maintaining interest and the required level of hunger, according to the Sligo boss, has been the greatest challenge since the league’s conclusion. You can’t expect players, he quips, to be at fever pitch for the better part of three months. “You would of course hope to be in a lot sooner. It is hard for players to keep that appetite going when you are away for 11-weeks. If our first championship game was the middle of May or even the end of May, it would have been easier to keep everything going. We don’t make the fixtures and there is no point giving out about it, that won’t get you anywhere.”

He continued: “It is almost a new season given the length between league and championship. You would have had to go into another pre-season of training, I would have felt. That is exactly what we did to get the players back up to a level where they would peak for the championship.

Charlie Harrison (cruciate) and Johnny Martyn (ankle) are two notable absentees in the Sligo defence and Carew insists momentum rests with Roscommon, not least because of their league success and the advantage of having a championship game under their belt.

“Roscommon have talked themselves up. They are in Division 1 now and they are talking about winning All-Irelands. Maybe that is the way to go. John Evans has done a massive job with them. They are now at the stage where they want some championship silverware. Roscommon will be thinking this is the year for it. Look, all the pressure is on Roscommon. We are still building.”

Meanwhile, two Donegal minor footballers and two members of the county’s backroom team have had their proposed eight-week suspensions lifted by the Ulster Hearings Committee. One of the two selectors involved has accepted a lesser four-week suspension. The quartet were sanctioned following a half-time incident in Donegal’s Ulster win over Armagh on May 31.