Michael Verney

They're a county that has only 28 football clubs.

Think about it, 28 football clubs.

And I read somewhere this week that outside of three of those, 25 of the 28 clubs have provided a player... Colin Keyes had that.

...a player to senior under 20 and under 17, which is absolutely remarkable.

But the other great thing about it is they implied...

a local manager, Mark Dowd, a guy who was very, very, very familiar with the club scene.

And it was very interesting.

I read an article, an interview with him last week, and he was talking about the type of player he went around the county looking for and what was the attribute he needed.

And he said, in particular, talking about the forwards of Roscommon, he said the Roscommon forward play in the past was a shoot and sight policy.

That was the key.

Whereas he was looking for what Dick mentioned a couple of minutes ago, pace.

And this is what he has introduced, the pace of that Roscommon team, the Heenan's and Neary and all of them.

Their direct running, their support play in numbers, their quick hands.

That was the key.

So they didn't have, like, that was number one, the pace.

But you also, a lot of these, this is a young team, a lot of the older fellas are gone.

But with a young team comes innocence.

But with innocence, sometimes young lads have belief.

Young lads have no fear.

This Roscommon team had no fear playing Galway in the Hyde last week.