ROSCOMMON MANAGER JOHN Evans believes that his players were hindered by the success enjoyed by his team earlier in the year.
The Division Two league champions were shocked by the Yeats men in Markiveicz Park on Saturday evening when they crashed to a four point defeat in the first provincial shock of the year.
Evans said in an interview with the Roscommon Herald that the success of winning both the FBD League and the Division Two title got to his players and they began to believe the hype that was surrounding them in the build-up.
“Sligo were by far the hungrier team, there’s no doubt about that. As I said to our own lads in the dressingroom, we tried to hide the fact that we had two cups (FBD League and Division Two league) in the bag,” said Evans.
“I suppose we tried to hide the cups and the bag to soften the blow. We were put up on a bit of a mantle to be taken down. But full credit to Sligo, they had us in all departments. The big factor was their hunger. They hadn’t been fed in a long, long time.”
Evans admitted that the management team did actually hide the trophies they won earlier in the year in a bag to try and keep the player’s mind’s off their own success.
It does get through to the players. What do you do when you have success? You win a couple of finals and a couple of trophies, and it puts you up on a pedestal. You try to mind the players from that.
“We did actually put the cups away. We put them into a bag and we didn’t go near them but that still doesn’t give you the cutting edge.”
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