Dowd happy with win over Armagh but not ‘getting too high about it’

While Kieran McGeeney captured national headlines for his description of the kickout battle under the new rules as “pure piggery”, Mark Dowd was much more circumspect in his response to Roscommon’s win over Armagh on Sunday afternoon.

The Strokestown native welcomed the result but refuted the idea that this win takes Roscommon to the brink of safety in the top tier of the National Football League, or that it was a solid performance for the full 70 minutes.

“It is a big win. No more than any of the games we were playing, it was one we were targeting for a performance. We got that at times in the game,” Dowd said after the 3-18 to 0-24 win (see report in this week's print edition).

“We’re not going to be getting too high about it. Our quarter one, we were very happy with that, but we took our foot off the gas in quarter two. There were different phases during the game, aspects of play that we definitely need working on as well.”

“Staying up or going down, that's not coming into our radar. It's round three of the National League, you see it every weekend, teams are taking points off others. We were only thinking about Armagh coming into today, now it's just a case of round four is coming very quickly to us, we have a short turnaround before we go to Salthill on Saturday (7pm), that's our focus,” he continued.

This win will be a boost, but also significant is the return of several Connacht club championship winners to the county ranks. Brian Stack and Eddie Nolan are believed to be working on injury issues but Dowd has been very happy to welcome a swathe of St Brigid’s and Strokestown players back on board.

“Colm Neary came on today, Shane McGinley was on the sideline there as well. The remaining guys came in there on Wednesday night. You've got to remember, they're after having a lay-off there of three or four weeks. You can't just jump these guys straight in," he said.

“We want to make sure we're not picking up injuries for the rest of the year. They're cautious, they're coming back in, they're doing their protocol and they'll be back in putting their hands up for contention for the next few weeks,” Dowd added.