It's Saturday Night Lights once again in Castlebar this weekend with Roscommon, the visitors to Elverys McHale Park. It has been a mixed week for Mayo, with the high of seeing Westport win an Intermediate All Ireland in HQ having been somewhat dampened with the news that Kevin Keane damaged his cruciate and is now out for the season. Here at Bear HQ we wish him all the best in his recovery.
Roscommon +5 at 11/10 (Ladbrokes)
Ok so onto Saturday Nights game. The Ross will be bitterly disappointed not to have picked up some points against Donegal in the last round of matches. Deep into stoppage time, with the game level, they managed to work a one on one with the Donegal keeper. The half back in question had a split second decision to make, and decided to put his foot through the ball and go for goal. Unfortunately, the keeper pulled off a brilliant save and Donegal drove up the pitch and Eoin McHugh kicked a glorious point to snatch the win. Maybe the right thing to do was fist the ball over the bar, but we admire the balls in taking the chance at winning the game. Their willingness to go for goal makes them a dangerous team.
Mayo on the other hand arrive at this juncture after turning in a really strong 2nd half performance in Tralee against Kerry. No word of a lie, Mayo could have conceded 5 goals in the first half and were very fortunate to only go in 3pts adrift. Kerry were rampant but for the injuries of Paul Geaney and Killian Young their lead would have been much greater. To their credit, Mayo made some positional changes and their greater experience came to the fore as they ground out a 2pt win. Andy Moran was excellent and destroyed Mark Griffin, but surely you have to mark him from the front and not allow him to get that primary possession? He will more than likely be picked up by his old St Nathy's College teammate Seanie McDermott, and what a fascinating battle that will be.
Diarmuid Murtagh started for his club at the weekend and will likely make the bench for this trip. He is a top quality player and throw him in beside his brother Ciaran, Enda Smith, Conor Devaney and Fintan Cregg and you have a highly skilled forward line. They have scored 3 goals in total so far to zero Mayo goals and we expect them to cause the Mayo backs a lot of trouble on Saturday. Tom Parsons is suspended, while question marks remain over Danny Kirby at intercounty level. We don't know if either of the O'Shea's will play but their lack of game time may hinder them. We doubt Lee Keegan will feature from the start after Westport's heroics on Sunday.
Roscommon might not win this but they have a knack of scoring goals and weather permitting we can expect a good open game of football which will help their cause. Both teams have had two weeks to prepare for this game and Roscommon will have been pinpointing this fixture as a possible win from the start. If they can get off to a good start and get Kevin Higgins winning ball around the middle then we fully expect them to take the game to Mayo. It's sure to be an exciting encounter in from of a huge crowd at Castlebar. Take the +5pts on Roscommon, we see this is much closer than expected. The handicap only 12 months ago was +1 in a game Mayo ended up winning by 3pts. Hopefully the Rossies will arrive in style, on their team bus and bring a performance to please their travelling support!!
We recommend a 3pt bet on Roscommon + 5 at 11/10 with Ladbrokes.
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