Dowd points to turnovers as key factor in defeat

An increased error count was one of the key factors that Roscommon manager Mark Dowd identified in the aftermath of his side’s 3-16 to 2-18 defeat to Tyrone on Sunday - a result that means that there is no more safety net for the Rossies in this year’s All-Ireland SFC.

“It was disappointing at the end,” he admitted. “We kept plugging away, we gave ourselves a chance to get back into that game towards the end. They got a free there towards the end to get the result out of it but overall, analysing the game, in quarter one and quarter two we had a lot of uncharacteristic turnovers, and they came more from ourselves rather than pressure being applied to us.”

The momentum shift that came from Tyrone’s third goal proved to be too much for Roscommon to overcome, having already had to work so hard to retrieve the five-point half-time deficit.

“We probably had a bit of momentum built up at that stage and it took us a while to respond again from that. Our lads kept plugging away and in quarter four, we got our hands on a lot of ball.

“We were converting and in fairness to Tyrone, they were smart there towards the end, the way they tried to keep ball and it was up to us to try and get it back off them. We would have done the very same if it was the other way around.”

An accusation levelled at Roscommon for decades now is that when it comes to the championship, all too often they’ve been lions in Connacht and lambs outside of the provincial series.

Dowd isn’t shying away from that reality, saying that it’s up to this group to change the narrative and write their own story in this All-Ireland race.

“This level is where we want to be. If we have the ambition of being a Division One team, wanting to be getting to these big days, that's what we've got to do,” he said.

“We've three weeks now of a rest but if we're ambitious, we're going to have games week-on-week now going forward.

“When we finished the league we were only guaranteed three games, now we're only guaranteed one more game. So it's about ourselves now. There’s no major injuries, it's just a case of getting fuel into them now again and getting going again for the next day.”