By John Harrington

Neil Collins believes Roscommon will have to play a more conservative brand of football if they are to go far in this year’s Championship.

The Rossies have some brilliant forwards and played an exciting brand of open, attacking football during the League. But full-back Collins thinks they’ll have to develop a more pragmatic and defensive style of play in order to lift some silverware.

“I think we are trying to form that identity,” he said. “I wouldn't say that we have if you look at Tyrone, they have a defined system and style of play. Same with Dublin. I don't think we have fully nailed our style of play yet. In the league sometimes, it was a case of let's just go for it, y'know?

“It was wide open football. But in championship, you don't win championship games by playing as open and free. A defensive element comes into it. I guess we are trying to find what or identity is but definitely, we have played some good football. We like to keep that element of it.”

Collins is confident they’ll get the mix right eventually because they have such expertise in their management team.Joint-managers Kevin McStay and Fergie O’Donnell are both highly respected in the group, and they’re backed up by renowned coaches Liam McHale, David Casey, and Stephen Bohan.

“I definitely think from a management point of view, it has moved on to a different level,” says Collins. “There are more numbers there now. Apart from Fergal and Kevin, you have Liam McHale, David Casey, Stephen Bohan. All of whom worked hard over the last couple of years and done quite well in their own management careers. There are more numbers, more professionalism overall- I would say that it is a different level also, the whole management structure.

“I have been playing for Roscommon, this is my sixth year on the senior panel. We are building structure around the senior team that will allow us to compete at a higher level so definitely it has gotten a lot more professional so things are on an upward curve for sure.”

Roscommon’s game-management has certainly been questionable in recent Championship campaigns.They went in as raging hot favourites into last year’s Connacht semi-final against Sligo, but once they were faced with a stiffer test than expected it was if they froze and were unable to impose themselves on the game. But when Collins looks back on that match, he believes the real reason behind their defeat was that so many players were either unfit, or unfocused.

“It's sometimes hard to grasp it fully at the time, when you are quite caught up in the build-up to games,” he said. “You are really trying to focus on yourself and your own performance that you don't really see the bigger picture. After the league last year, we played London in our first game and didn't play well against London, at all, after winning Division 2. A few lads weren't fully fit, going into Sligo game.

“I guess looking back we were not playing well at the time, not training well at the time. Things were not ideal going into that game, but you try and blank that out. But Sligo beat us fair and square and quite comfortably. I think we thought we were in a decent place, even though we weren't playing massively well.

“All games are different. Take the game this year against Leitrim, in the first ten minutes we hadn't score and they had scored. So, you don't really know how a game is panning out until it settles a bit. At the end of the first half, Sligo scored a goal from a penalty and that is when I started to think, things aren't going great here. There are four or five points up, we weren't competing as we should be. And as the second half went on, and we hadn't clawed the thing back, you sort of realised that things weren't going as you thought they would.

“Sometimes, it is hard to turn it around when the momentum is with the other team and they seem to be getting to the ball faster than you, and they are putting the ball over the bar whenever they get the opportunity. We definitely learnt something from it, or hope to have. But it can be hard to turn those games around when they are going away from you.”

Sunday’s Connacht Semi-Final against the same opposition will tell us exactly how much Roscommon have learned. 

Neil Collins helped kick off AIB's sponsorship of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship. For a second consecutive year, this partnership will link the AIB GAA Club Championships and the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship under one sponsorship, a first in GAA history. For exclusive content and to see why AIB are Official Suppliers of Club Players to County, follow AIB on Twitter at @AIB_GAA and on Facebook at Facebook.com/AIBGAA.