Repeat collapse could be fatal next time, warns Rovers boss

Brian Benson issued a stark warning to his Crossmolina players in the aftermath of their victory at MacHale Park last Saturday, that if they produce another 30 minutes display akin to their first-half against St Michael’s, then their championship adventure will reach a shuddering halt.

That might all sound a little harsh about a team who had nine points to spare over their Galway opponents but after a storming start that saw the Deel Rovers lead by 2-2 to 0-1 after only 11 minutes, the manner in which they allowed St Michael’s back into the game alarmed the manager.

“Going seven points up, I don’t know if subconsciously the lads maybe took their eye off the ball,” said Benson, whose team ended up trailing by one point at half-time.

“We have to regroup and look at the video during the week and see why we took our eye off the ball and what happened in that 20 minutes after we went seven up.

“We regrouped and came out at half-time and were by far a better team, more settled I think and a bit calmer,” added Benson, conscious that the dismissal of St Michael’s attacking ace Gary Higgins just before half-time was a crushing blow to the Galway outfit.

“That probably turned the tide towards us,” he admitted.

“We’re delighted with the way the second-half went but we have a lot of work to do after looking at the first-half display. That 30 minutes, it’ll be all over [the next day].” 

After three successive championship games at MacHale Park, Crossmolina must now hit the road to play Roscommon intermediate champions Elphin in next Sunday’s Connacht final at Hyde Park (1.30pm). It’s where Elphin beat Eastern Harps of Sligo in last Saturday’s provincial semi-final and Strokestown in the Roscommon IFC final before that, conceding just 0-7 in each game. It’s that latter victory, by all of eight points (2-9 to 0-7) that probably speaks most about the quality of Elphin, given that Strokestown were senior champions of Roscommon as recently as 2022.

Long-serving county footballer Fintan Cregg scored 1-5 of his side’s tally in that match while past and present Roscommon players, Shane Killoran and Niall Higgins, are other lynchpins of a team that is managed by Ros’ legend Nigel Dinneen.

Killoran, who within the last year was making his living in Dubai, could certainly be forgiven for craving the sunshine of his former place of residence as Ireland braces itself for a cold snap this week, but the smile across the Elphin midfielder’s face at the final whistle at Hyde Park last Sunday made it clear that both last weekend, and this coming week against Crossmolina, there’s nowhere that he’d rather be, regardless of the weather.

“You couldn’t have written a script any better than this” he beamed, as he reflected on Elphin’s hard-fought 0-9 to 0-7 win against Eastern Harps.

“We have to savour these days. I hadn’t played in a county final before this year, and it might be the only chance that we get to play in Connacht, so we have to make the most of it, and that means finding a way to win and extending the season.

“This was a harder game to get up for than the Strokestown game. It’s not that it wasn’t as important, in some ways it’s every bit as special, but your whole year is built around getting to a county final, then there’s a little bit of a reset after that. We took some time after the county final win to get the minds and the bodies right, but it was always going to be a challenge to be fully ready for a good Eastern Harps team.” 

The scale of that challenge was apparent in the first-half when the visiting Sligo club had the best of things, and Killoran admitted that Elphin weren’t helping matters by giving the ball away too easily.

“We were lucky to only be a point down, they could have had a goal along with it, so even though we weren’t playing well, there was no-one panicking. At half-time we just said to ourselves that we had battled well all year, we needed to knuckle down, stop the turnovers, work the ball into the shooters, and we did. We really shut up shop in the second half.

“They were picking off scores from our turnovers, were just weren’t protecting the ball. It’s not what we’ve been doing all year and it’s not what we’re about, so we had to address that.

“Now we get to come back here next weekend to play Crossmolina, and it’ll be like the Strokestown game in that we’ll be big outsiders, but it’ll be another huge occasion, another great day for the club, and another huge game that we can’t wait to play.” 

Brian Benson might disagree with Shane Killoran’s assertion that Crossmolina are hot favourites to lift the trophy next Sunday but there’s no doubt the manager and his players – who are preparing for their fourth final (league, championship and championship replay) this year – are intent on giving this game one hell of a crack.

“It’s all about recovery, just to make sure all the bodies are right this week,” says Benson. “We’ll probably train once during the week and meet maybe on Friday evening.

“We’ll go for it again and hopefully all the bodies are fit and well.” Midfielder Darragh Syron sat out last weekend’s win against St Michael’s with a minor knock but Brian Benson expects to have a fully fit squad to pick from.