ENON GAVIN is, with Derek Dougan, one of the best known and most recognisable Roscommon players in the current team. Both are generally regarded as veterans, yet they are only 26 and 25 respectively.

Both players came into consideration for the team before they had turned 20 and, although they are not the oldest members of the team at the moment, they are regarded as the most experienced.

Gavin is the captain and figured prominently in Connacht's victory over Munster in last Sunday's Railway Cup semi final in Ennis when Connacht qualified for the final for the first time in 10 years.

Even though there were only three Roscommon players in the team, there was, according to Gavin, a good team spirit. With him from Roscommon were Tom Ryan and Nigel Dineen, and they are looking forward to the final, which promises to draw the biggest crowd for a Railway Cup final for a long time.

"It was good to win that match, even if it was very close and there was only a point in it at the end after extra time. There will be great interest in the final, particularly if the teams have several Mayo and Meath players in action against each other in Castlebar," he says.

Whether the Leinster selectors will recall the Meath players who missed the semi final because they were in the United States remains to be seen.

Roscommon are sharing the top of the Division Three table with eight points from four matches. Commenting on the fact that three of those matches - against Longford, Wicklow and Westmeath - were all won by a single point, he says: "Yes we cut it a bit fine in those matches, but being ahead at the final whistle is the important thing. It is better to win by a point than to lose by a point. We were beaten narrowly by Mayo in the FBD Connacht League and beat Leitrim by a point, so we are getting used to close finishes.

"Our last two matches in the league proper are at home to Galway and Down and they will be tough matches to win, but we have to keep winning if we are to get into the play off stages. That would be the best way to step up our training and preparation for our championship match. Teams are putting more emphasis on the National League in recent years because it builds up team work and team spirit for the championship later on.

"Our first round championship match is against Sligo in Markievicz Park and that is not an easy proposition. Sligo came very close to upsetting the situation in the last two years when they drew with Galway, only to be beaten in the replay. We have no illusions about the difficulty of that fixture.

"All teams nowadays prepare well and are very fit when it comes to the championship. The days when you could see teams beaten by 10 or 12 points in the championship are gone," he insists.

He underlines this by saying that Roscommon now have two, and maybe three, training sessions a week, as well as a match practically every Sunday.

The team manager, Donie. Shine, has called in Paddy Hynes as trainer and he has set a stiff regime which includes a lot of physical work and hill running once a week near Strokestown.

"We are not doing a lot with the ball at the moment. All players prefer to train with the ball, but that is too easy if you want to get really fit. Even if we have a Connacht League match on Sunday, we could spend up to two hours or more hill running.

"If we haven't a match on Sunday, we might also have a Sunday session.

Like many teams now, Roscommon's resources are widely scattered. Brothers Derek and Ken Duggan play for Garda in Dublin, Martin Feeley lives in Cork and Damien Donlon and David O'Neill are at university in Limerick. Gavin himself works in Athlone. "I don't have far to go for the training in Johnstown, just down the road," he says.

Gavin was honoured as an All Star corner back in 1991, and is now looking forward to being a member of the first Connacht team to win the Railway Cup since 1969.

Promotion from Division Three is one of the Roscommon priorities.

"It is very important to play in the higher divisions of the league, preferably in the first, if you want to do well in the championship. The better the standard, the better the team will become, and playing in the lower divisions before small crowds doesn't encourage players to be at their best," he says.

"After that, the obvious aim is to win the Connacht championship and we are concentrating on these things at the moment," he says.

That could be a tall order. Mayo's profound disappointment in the summer has left them more determined than ever. Yet the quiet, determined way which the Roscommon captain talks about his hopes for his team suggests that supremacy in Connacht is a long way from being settled.