John Evans attributed Roscommon's eye-catching FBD Connacht League victory over Mayo to the hurt his players felt after losing to NUIG in the previous round.

Speaking to the Irish Daily Star after the Rossies' first win over their neighbours in Elvery's MacHale Park since 1986, the Killorglin man explained: "After last Sunday you'd want to be pleased that we turned things around, we've been training very hard.

"It's January 18, we were after 20 sessions out of 24, so the lads were really tired, but there was no excuse for their display the last day, the students turned us over.

"But we said we'd cut back the training a small bit and freshen it up. We were coming down here to put a bit of respectability back, for ourselves really. We didn't get any criticism, we were doing it for ourselves.

"It wasn't the fact that it was against Mayo or the fact that it was in Castlebar, nothing to do with that, we just wanted to play for ourselves."

Roscommon will meet Galway in the Connacht League final next weekend, but the manager stressed that the first round of the Allianz League is what really matters.

"It's today fortnight we're totally focused on, but any time you come up against a Division 1 team like Mayo, albeit they didn't have a cracking team out there, though I think they had nine of their championship team."

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