Galway and the Rossies look to be heading on right road

THE 2016 GAA season may still be in its infancy, but it’s already clear that this year’s Connacht football championship has the potential to be the most competitive for quite some time despite the fact that provincial minnows Leitrim and Sligo won’t really count.

With Mayo chasing a record-breaking sixth Connacht title on the trot, footballing events in the West this summer were bound to be the subject of greater public intrigue than normal . . . but now there is also the tantalising prospect that both Galway and Roscommon are moulding into serious championship forces again.

Early season football action tends to produce no shortage of surprise results, but what happened in Pairc Ui Rinn last Sunday was seismic Not alone did a resurgent Roscommon come away with two National League points from a venue where Cork were protecting a decent record, they did it in such a ruthless style that the Rebels ended up being routed by a scarcely believable 18 points.

With their high profile new management team embracing Fergal O’Donnell and Mayo duo, Kevin McStay and Liam McHale, there were high hopes that Roscommon would make some significant progress in 2016 and, in the process, build on the talent coming through from several quality U-21 teams in recent years. Already, they are making a statement of intent.

At the start of the league campaign newly promoted Roscommon’s basic objective was to survive in the First Division, but when they were nailed virtually on the line in their opening match against Monaghan in Kiltoom after doing a lot of things right, they were already under pressure, especially with their next two games embracing daunting away trips against Kerry and Cork.

Nobody would have envisaged Roscommon talking full points from both those encounters. They had appeared in some distress against Kerry in the opening-half, but eventually held their nerve to edge a fluctuating encounter in Killarney Perhaps, most observers under-estimated the impact of that result on the Roscommon psyche, but on the evidence of last Sunday’s trouncing of Cork it has injected the squad with a surge of confidence

Having captured only two Connacht titles since 1991, Roscommon is a county desperate for success, but they are already looking a much improved outfit in 2016. O’Donnell, who guided the county minors to All-Ireland glory ten years ago, and McStay are serious operators, while judging by the scoring exploits of Cathal Cregg, Conor Devaney and Ciaran Murtagh, who landed 2-4 from play, against Cork, Roscommon are assembling a forward line capable of mixing it with the best.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.