'Tyrone schooled us in a challenge, but Rossies will be fine. We are ready'
SENIOR SYSTEM: Roscommon manager Noel Dunning tries to replicate a senior enviroment for his U20 squad. Picture: INPHO/Bryan Keane
On the face of it, the senior footballers of London and the U-20 footballers of Roscommon don’t have a lot in common, but for Roscommon manager Noel Dunning, the unique challenges associated with looking after the Exiles for five years was invaluable to his current role, which is trying to get Roscommon past Tyrone on Saturday (5pm) and into the Eirgrid All-Ireland U-20 final.
Dunning, whose first championship match as London manager ended in a heartbreaking 0-12 to 1-8 defeat to his native Roscommon in 2005, feels that people over here don’t understand what’s involved with getting a group of London footballers ready to compete with home-based county teams.
“I’d go back to a comment I made as London manager at the time, which is that if you can manage an intercounty team in London, you’ll do it anywhere. The logistics involved, getting pitches, working with players to ensure that they can stay involved and get to training, these are all weekly tasks, and that doesn’t include different things like player eligibility and transfers, which is something that managers over here don’t really have to think about” he said.
“Later on I was a selector with Ciarán Deely, I picked up a lot there from people he brought in from his professional soccer background, that experience is much closer to what we’re doing now with Roscommon U-20s. I believe you have to replicate the senior experience as best you can at U-20 level, because just the same as you want to bridge the gap in terms of football and physicality, we also have to help players to get ready for the culture involved with playing top level intercounty senior football”.
Dunning, whose youth was spent playing with Athlone in Westmeath before he transferred out to St. Aidan’s and then moved to London, didn’t have a coaching pathway identified when he returned to Roscommon a few years ago, but he’s enjoying the journey all the same.
“The call from Anthony Cunningham (to serve as selector) was a bolt from blue, I had come back and just wanted to get involved with the club. I had no specific ambitions, we still have our business in London and I didn’t know what time I would have to spend in London. But when the call came I was delighted to get the opportunity, there was no way I could turn it down.
“I’m as primrose and blue as anyone, so you don’t say no to your home county. Even though we got promotion, overall the year didn’t work out as we had hoped, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and so I put my hat in the ring when the 20s job came up and I was delighted to get it”.
Defeat to Sligo in a straight knockout game in 2023 meant that his first championship season as Rossie U-20 boss was a short one, but Sligo’s subsequent heroics suggested that Roscommon weren’t that far off the pace last year.
This year, before the championship started, Roscommon shipped an unmerciful beating from Tyrone in a challenge game, and there were similar suggestions around the county that things weren’t going as well as they should be. But once again, as the year progressed, things look very different.
“They gave us a schooling in that game and we learned a lot from it” Dunning says.
“Tyrone have come through a very tough Ulster championship, no more than ourselves in Connacht, but we’ll be ready for them, we’ll be fine. They’re an excellent team and they’re playing well, but we are Connacht champions so we should be confident too”.
