Games Weekend 4th 5th March

[Kingswood Rover]

Really enjoyed the evening walking down the hill into the away end right on kick off on a calm cool evening with the place jammers...... absolute magic. Some really good football at times from both teams without it being end to end. Watts, Grace, Byrne and Burke i thought were excellent for us. The only position i worry about for us the season is The keeper, Manus has been a colossus but his best days are now long gone. Rovers have a battle on their hand to retain the title tbh i think it could be the making of this team and if the league is tight all the way through that can only be a good thing in terms of interest and excitement.

[oriel]

I'm not a fan of the artificial pitches before anyone jumps on, but as much as Showgrounds is a lovely venue, the pitch tonight is just shocking, bobbles all over the place, this is their first home game too, jaysus lads roll the damn thing.

Its really effecting both sides to get the ball down and play. First half was not easy on the eye !

[Jd2793]

woeful cork performance. they could probably count themselves lucky to get a point. Keating was the only threat we had all game and came close twice in the first half to scoring yet we move him wide and sub him off. we didnt trouble the keeper enough in the 90 , woeful woeful stuff.

[mcgonigle]

I'm not a fan of the artificial pitches before anyone jumps on, but as much as Showgrounds is a lovely venue, the pitch tonight is just shocking, bobbles all over the place, this is their first home game too, jaysus lads roll the damn thing.

Its really effecting both sides to get the ball down and play. First half was not easy on the eye !

I think it was rolled to be fair. Was nice and flat at the start it is just so soft it cut up really badly, hence the bobbles. Really didn't help either side

[oriel]

Well it looked awful on TV and the guys doing commentary from Sligo mentioned same a good few times, real pity and it was near impossible to play any decent patches of football tonight on it, by both sides.

On the game, very happy with the result, which was a fair outcome, we are back up to second, solid start to the season, re-build is in full flow.

[dong]

Yeah pitch is terrible. Even the best players would be made to look average on it and took any flow out of the passing. Not sure why it's so bad.

[Longfordian]

woeful cork performance. they could probably count themselves lucky to get a point. Keating was the only threat we had all game and came close twice in the first half to scoring yet we move him wide and sub him off. we didnt trouble the keeper enough in the 90 , woeful woeful stuff.

It was a poor game and we probably should have won it. Our young centre back Matthew Dunne who I think was making his league debut was very good. We've a few injuries up front but I don't think we'll be challenging to win the league.

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

Yeah pitch is terrible. Even the best players would be made to look average on it and took any flow out of the passing. Not sure why it's so bad.

Neglected it during the break. It’s improved on the way it was for the Harps friendly so you can imagine how bad it was then. Just awful. Really going to hinder us during the season.

[sbgawa]

Aye 4 games in 2 points off top, not too much here but some Rovers fans have gotten a right dose of the Ollies!

Danny scores early when clean through instead of falling over the ball and its a different game.Danny's finishing has been terrible so far this season , contrast to Burke is staggering, Burke through on keeper 1 on 1 has had two chances this season and slotted both with ease, Danny has missed 4 or 5.
He's to good to go on like that but id be surprised if Burke doesnt start against Bohs

[redarmyfaction]

Yeah pitch is terrible. Even the best players would be made to look average on it and took any flow out of the passing. Not sure why it's so bad.

New guy doing the groundkeeping apparently.

[Calcio Jack]

If you’s qread my last post again you'll see that I said the same thing, it would be worse if the players were just accepting not playing games and happy with their big wages as Calcio Jack suggested they are doing by his comment about the players being happy. I then pointed out that there has in fact been public strops thrown which indicates that they clearly aren’t happy with not playing.



For clarity I never said the players are happy when not playing on account of big wages- my point is that the sum of the ‘parts’ wages, facilities and indeed winning things etc. Means that the players get it that there is competition but also get that’s one of the drivers of their/our success and a similar ‘package’ isn’t available with any other club ( currently) .

We’re akin to Leinster in rugby others may beat us the odd time but overall we’re ( currently ) best option locally

[Nesta99]

Danny scores early when clean through instead of falling over the ball and its a different game.Danny's finishing has been terrible so far this season , contrast to Burke is staggering, Burke through on keeper 1 on 1 has had two chances this season and slotted both with ease, Danny has missed 4 or 5.
He's to good to go on like that but id be surprised if Burke doesnt start against Bohs

Tough to drop a player when they need some confidence and thats usually by playing games but if Burke is showing better form then he has to be in. There'll be no unbeaten side this season but if Rovers do slip up in the derby and the gap could go to 5 points its is a bit of early pressure that wouldnt have been expected. But even if Bohs ends up a banana skin its just a tad early for some fans to be panicking. The benefits of playing sides 4 times keeps things in the mix and in own hands for most of the season.

The pitch in Sligo is getting plenty of attention but it really did prevent any quality breaking out last night and it could have been a good game I think. Will have been energy sapping. Perfect for a few Harps sides over the years but this year Ollie wouldny have been pleased ether. Nando looks a good find, knew how to keep Bradley quiet and forcing him on to his weaker side nearly all the time. Wasnt a pitch for bringing Ward on late but not sure there was another option with a more physical midfielder to bring on. Sligo only really started to press in the last 10 minutes so were the fitter side or better with the heavy pitch.

[oriel]

Neglected it during the break. It’s improved on the way it was for the Harps friendly so you can imagine how bad it was then. Just awful. Really going to hinder us during the season.

Hopefully you get it improved, at least there is a bit of growth in march and more so in April, so good time to get it fixed.

Would dearly love to see ours replaced by grass for 2023, but a very long list of items to improve in oriel park !

It really was a terrible game to watch last night, 0-0 just about sums it up as neither did enough to win it really, good few of us heading over for the June game, staying over so looking forward to that.

[Martinho II]

Was at our game last nite pitch didnt look great awkward bobbles Luke Dennison did a shinner cant really blame him. Think the bad weather recently hasnt helped. Thought we should ave won missed so many chances. Was very impressed with Dennison,Barnett and Eric Molloy in particular!

[dong]

There was a bit of trouble between fans after the game last night. Whatever went on wasn't major but could have ended badly for someone. Last week there was some really sickening abuse that was way beyond the realms of being acceptable aimed at Chris Forrester.
Each club has to own this carry on themselves.
Sligo Rovers have always had good relationships with Dundalk and St Pat's. I can't really remember too many incidents before with fans able to mingle freely and there was never any issue.
It seems now this is being tarnished and this can't be allowed to happen.

[oriel]

Maybe with increased crowds, there is an attraction now for a small minority to turn up to cause trouble? The age profile on those 'at it' in Bray and Sligo does appear to be quite young.

Whoever they are, message should be clear, behave or stay away, this is something every club can do without.

[joey B]

It’s the same thing happens in every town in Ireland on a Saturday night,young fellas with a couple too many drinks get into a row egged on by their mates,don’t think it needs to be overblown just hopefully managed the right way,if it takes keeping the away fans back for 10 minutes until crowds clear then that’s what clubs should do IMO…..

[sadloserkid]

We're a long, long way from what happened in Mexico at the weekend thankfully but it should absolutely be stamped down on hard at the same time. Anybody who throws a punch of any description because they're letting some sort of faux tribalism make up for a miserable home life or whatever else they're missing is a cretin. I'm sure most will grow out of it but, as oriel said above, no club needs that sort of nonsense attached.