After a league campaign which saw them safely retain their top-flight status, much focus is on the Roscommon footballers as they bid to make a real impact in this year's championship.
In his time in charge, John Evans made real strides with the Rossies and now under the stewardship of Kevin McStay and Fergie O'Donnell, there is a heightened expectation that more progress can be made.
A measure of that progression would be getting to a first Connacht final since 2011. As was the case last year, Sligo are their opponents in the provincial semi. Many in Roscommon will not need reminding what happened last June in Markievicz Park - the Yeats County dictated affairs from the off to leave their opponents frustrated come the final whistle.
The Rossies are well fancied, however, to exact revenge at Dr Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon and RTÉ analyst John Casey expects the Division 1 outfit to make it three wins from three in this summer campaign.
"When you factor in the ambush Sligo had in waiting in Markievicz Park last year, that will surely eradicate any form of complacency this time around for Roscommon," said the former Mayo star.
"They will want to make amends for last year. With home advantage, I expect them to cover the five-point handicap against a Sligo side missing the likes of Brian Curran, Ross Donovan and David Kelly, though the return to full fitness of Adrian Marren is a boost."
Casey has closely watched the Rossies this year and was impressed by the manner in which they dismantled Leitrim the last day - this following on from a bad defeat to Kerry in the league semi-final and a nervy showing in their Connacht opener against New York - which made the former Mayo star question their well-being ahead of championship.
"They did ship a bit of a hiding from Kerry and everybody was wondering what had happened to the team?", he outlined.
"Were fitness levels at their peak for the early part of the league? And then they nearly got caught out in New York.
"That game forced Kevin McStay and Fergie O'Donnell to sit up and take notice that things weren't going right.
"In the game against Leitrim, they were very, very impressive and offensively they were superb. Fintan Cregg, Conor Devaney, Ciarán Murtagh, on the half-forward line all scored from play. In the full-forward line, Donie Shine looks back to his best.
"All told, their crisp interchange of play was top drawer in Carrick."
Casey goes on to say that Roscommon would "put it up to a lot of teams" at the moment, but tellingly he feels they are still a bit behind Mayo in the race to be Connacht standard bearers.
"Mayo are a bit ahead of Roscommon in terms of preparation and physicality. The league game at the Hyde saw Mayo's physicality clearly come to the fore and Roscommon could not match it," he noted.
"That said the Rossies are developing nicely and they's relish another crack off Mayo if that came to pass."
Watch live coverage of Roscommon v Sligo on RTÉ One television and the RTÉ Player. Highlights of all the weekend's action on The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ One.
