Match at a glance

Man of the Match (David O’Gara, Roscommon): If the game was stopped at half-time there would hardly be any Roscommon players in contention. The entire Sligo full-forward line were candidates at that stage as they played havoc with the Roscommon defence. However after the break there were several Roscommon stars. Donie Shine was in imperious form and Roscommon would not have won the game without his mighty free-taking. Michael Killilea recoved from a poor first half to play a fantastic second half. Niall Carty was also brilliant when introduced as a half-time sub. However the one player whose performance level never dropped was David O’Gara who ran tirelessly and carried an amount of ball into Sligo territiory time after time and he is a richly deserving man of the match winner. Weather/crowd watch: The weather couldn’t be much worse with high winds and driving rain blowing towards the Shannon throughout. The Kiltoom pitch was in incredible shape, given the awful weather. The crowd was a good one for a Saturday – about 1,500 people – and they really got behind their team in what was a really exciting second half. Entertainment value: Very good (if you were from Roscommon!) but in reality both sides combined to produce a brilliant second half of championship football that had the crowd on tenderhooks right to the finish.