O'Rourke aware of importance of Roscommon game

Editorial Department • Published 11 Feb 2010 10:00 0 Comments

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Malachy O'Rourke is looking for a win on Saturday night when Fermanagh take on Roscommon.<<

Malachy O'Rourke is not expecting anything easy on Saturday night when Roscommon come to Brewster Park. Roscommon suffered a heavy double scores loss to Cavan on Sunday that would have some thinking that Fermanagh will be strong favourites for this one but O'Rourke is not thinking that way at all, and with Fermanagh having also lost their opening game he is aware of the importance of Saturday night's game to both sides.

"This is a very tough league and I've no doubt that Roscommon are going to be very tough on Saturday night," said O'Rourke.

"We had somebody watching Roscommon's game against Cavan and the final scoreline maybe did not reflect the game as a whole as Roscommon lead in the first half and it was level for a while in the second half but once Cavan got their goal they pulled away and Roscommon started to fade. They will be coming up here on Saturday night seriously looking to get the show back on the road and we're going to have to be ready for that. They will be a wounded animal and we have to be prepared for a dog fight. Every game from now on will be a must win game and Saturday's is very important as we don't want to have no points from our first two games. There is no better preparation for championship football later in the year than games like this and we will be looking for a good performance and a result," he stated.

O'Rourke will have changes to make from Sunday's loss with Ronan and Rory Gallagher tied up with their club St. Gall's and Martin O'Brien suspended.

"It would be unfair to both the players and St. Gall's if they were to be play so they won't be involved this week but we would be hoping to have Ryan Carson back. We will have to look at getting the right blend. We will see how the fellas perform during the week and look to have the best possible team out for Saturday night," added O'Rourke.

Sunday's loss to Offaly was to prove a disappointing start for O'Rourke who had been targeting a win from the start of the season.

"It was a disappointing start. We prepared well, trained very well and were focussed on the challenge but we got a poor start to the game and then when we began to find our feet we had a man sent off and it was always going to be a struggle in the second half as we played into a strong wind and were a man down. In fairness we were coping ok then they got a deflected goal which was a serious body blow for us and we were unable to get a goal to get back into the game," he commented.

It was an inexperienced team that took to the field on Sunday in Tullamore and O'Rourke admits that it is not an easy place to go when missing key personnel.

"Right before the game we had to pull out Damien Kelly due to injury and Ryan Carson also had to withdraw. We had something like nine fellas starting against Offaly who did not play championship football last year and we had six league debuts. Tullamore is a tough place to go to get a result but our hands were forced so we had to throw a lot of them in," he said.

And he also acknowledges that some of his sides old failings came back to haunt them.

"In the first half we kicked wides and balls into the goalkeeper's hands. It is an area that we are continually talking about and working on and all we can do is continue to work at it," he stated.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 11 Feb 10

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