‘Do or die’ clash for Minor champs against Roscommon

Date Published: 26-Jun-2008

GENUINE championship intensity should be on offer at Tuam Stadium on Saturday evening (7pm) when the Galway minor footballers put their provincial and All-Ireland titles on the line in a Connacht semi-final clash with Roscommon.

It’s a real ‘do or die’ mission for the last two All-Ireland champions at this grade, as the winners are guaranteed both a place in the Connacht final and the quarter-finals while the losers’ campaign will end for the season.

And it has the makings of a far more intense affair than last month’s provincial quarter-finals, when a lack-lustre Galway overcame Sligo by 0- 11 to 0-9 and Mayo edged out Roscommon in tussles which only really decided the home venues for the semi-finals.

Amazingly, after the two quarter- finals all four teams – Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, and Galway – were still in the semi-finals, after Leitrim were eliminated at the round-robin stage.

If it’s hard to know what to make of the current format of the Connacht minor championship, what’s beyond doubt is this will be a hard-fought affair between two sides whose expectations have grown enormously over the past two wondrous campaigns.

In 2006, it was hard to believe that the future All-Ireland champions were on show when Fergal O’Donnell’s Roscommon side edged past Galway in a poor opening round tie at Dr. Hyde Park. Twelve months later, Galway hardly set the world alight in the early stages of the championship either before their remarkable wins over Carlow, Kerry, and Derry.

Whereas the ………………….