Following Roscommon's surprise loss to Clare in the All-Ireland GAA Championship qualifiers, there are few in a better position to give an insight into the problems of the Rossies than ex-manager Kevin McStay.
Speaking on RTE's GAA Podcast, McStay gave an impassioned argument as to why Roscommon were defeated yesterday, citing issues that go back as far as his time in charge and years before.
"And it's the result of an issue that Roscommon have had I would say going back ten years plus, no at this stage 20 years, is the lack of really straight up committed defenders. We just don't have them. There's a big issue when you have a lot of your defenders who don't actually go around looking for contact, that they're happy to play areas without engaging an opponent. It gives too much time on the ball. And a scoreline of 1-17 not to win a qualifier game, it should not happen. And the big issue, and this comes from my period in charge as well so I'm not trying to be silly about the issue and I can go back quite a while now through a lot of managers here in the county.
"And the issue is that while managers and management of course give huge concentration on defence and defensive structures, you have to have players that are committed to that structure. But most importantly, committed to engaging opponents when they breach it. And that is where Roscommon so badly fell down not only in the Connacht final, and I was sure it would be tidied up or certainly a better effort, but yesterday I could have picked you ten clips where a Clare player comes through and the Roscommon sweeper is 30 yards further back on the 20 metre line not even close to engagement. There's no hard tackling going in it's all shadowing, it's guys just trying to push them down a channel.
Clare will now face off against Derry in the All-Ireland quarter, with Roscommon once again having to pick themselves up and figure out exactly what went wrong.
SEE ALSO: Sean Cavanagh Says Armagh Are The 'Real Deal' After Donegal Demolition Job
