Offaly and Roscommon name teams for TESCO HomeGrown Division 4 Decider

 

Offaly and Roscommon will meet on Saturday in the TESCO HomeGrown National Football League Division 4 Final in Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds. The match throws in at 5pm and precedes the meeting of Galway and Cork in the Cadbury U21 Football Championship Final. With promotion to Division 3 on the line there is plenty at stake for both teams apart from the Division 4 title.

For Offaly reaching the final is a sign of the progression that Greg Farrelly has overseen during his tenure as manager of the team. In his previous two years in charge, Offaly have been defeated at the semi-final stage but this year they were not to be denied as they overcame Antrim to progress to the final. ‘At the start of the year we set ourselves the target of the semi-final and we achieved that so we then refocused on reaching the final and thankfully we achieved that too, now we are fully concentrating on Roscommon on Sunday, our new aim is winning the title, we have worked hard to get here and we are not coming to make up the numbers.’

Farrelly has a fully fit squad to choose from and is quick to emphasise the role of all 30 players on the squad in their success to date ‘this is not about numbers 1 to 15. We are lucky that we have a strong squad that have all worked so hard to get to this stage, the starting 15 know that they have to play to the best of their abilities as there is 1 or even 2 players more than capable of taking their place. Reaching Division 3 would be a massive achievement for this squad and playing against those higher quality players would be great for their development.’ Offaly have already had a good win over Roscommon during the league stages but as Farrelly points out that was a totally different occasion ‘we played them at home on a bad day where the conditions were terrible so I wouldn’t read too much into that result, this is a totally different occasion and that match will have very little bearing on this one.’

Roscommon suffered a 6 point defeat to Offaly the last time that the two teams met in February but manager, Kieran Kilkenny, is happy that his team has improved since then ‘I don’t think we played to our potential that day, the conditions were difficult and the pitch was heavy but it was a wake up call for the girls and they have responded well since then.’ Cliodhna McHugh missed the semi final victory over Limerick but there are hopes that she might be fit enough to take a place on the sideline at the weekend. Roscommon enjoyed a comprehensive victory over a well fancied Limerick team in the semi final ‘We worked hard on the training pitch and the girls took everything from there and put it into action in the semi final, it couldn’t have gone any better from that point of view.’

The semi final will be played in the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick on Saturday ahead of the men’s Under 21 football final and it is something that Kilkenny and his Roscommon team are very much looking forward to ‘The Gaelic Grounds is in the top 3 or 4 venues in the country and there should be an extra buzz playing there, I think the girls are very much looking forward to the experience, it is for days like that and for playing in venues like that that you get involved in the game and train so hard so we are very much looking forward to it and hopefully if things go well for us at the weekend then we will be looking forward to Division 3 next year.’

The teams for the final have both been named and are as follows: