'Can we get more nominations, can we get more All-Stars?'

Roscommon senior football manager, Davy Burke, hopes that Enda Smith’s All-Star award can inspire other players on the panel to follow in the Boyle player’s footsteps. Burke was in attendance at the RDS on Friday evening to see Smith become the 12th Roscommon player to win the coveted individual award, and the Kildare native believes that there are more players in the current panel that are good enough to receive the same recognition.

“Enda is the first All-Star I’ve ever worked with. A couple of players that I’ve been involved with were nominated before. It’s massive for me as manager of Roscommon. I’m absolutely delighted for Enda. I hope that it will give the squad a massive boost, and a real belief that we’re not that far away. We’re knocking on the door on the national stage. Now, we have an All-Star in our ranks. I’d be asking the question, ‘can we get more nominations, can we get more All-Stars’? That’s the thing I’d be looking at.

“We have serious talent. I’m not going to put names out there and put pressure on them. I know from conversations with the lads that it is a personal target of theirs, separate to the team's goals. They want to be recognised on the biggest stage. I think it’s important that you have personal goals on top of teams goals because, ultimately, we’re all individuals at the end of the day.

“No doubt there are more lads waiting in that dressing room. But they don’t hand out All-Stars that handy. As Roscommon know, it’s 22 years since Francie Grehan got one. We need to make sure — and I’m the manager at the minute — that this becomes the norm for Roscommon. If we’re not winning them, we need to make sure that nominations become regular,” he explained.

Burke went on to praise Smith’s contribution to Roscommon’s cause in 2023, highlighting that his levels never dipped in training or in matches.

“It’s the consistency in his performance, in his preparation. His training was savage. He’s a beast of a man. He has a sheer physical presence around the place. His work ethic is brilliant. He’s a big man and he needs work. But he puts that work in. He had an injury before Christmas last year and he had to work extra hard to get it right.

“Every single night, Enda turned up to training, and he performed. That was every Tuesday and every Thursday, and, ultimately, that leads into the weekend. I’m not sure the general public realise how difficult it is to be man-marked every day. And yet Enda still performs, still excels. That’s extremely hard and that’s why I tip my hat to him. When you’re a marked man and end up being the best player on the field, that’s some level of ability,” he explained.

Smith became the ninth player from a team that didn’t reach the All-Ireland quarter-finals since 2001 to win an All-Star, and the first since Charlie Harrison from Sligo in 2010. In Burke’s view, the new championship structure will reward players who perform at a consistently high level over the course of the season.

“Enda’s levels of consistency and his high levels of performance when it came to matches on television, it’s very hard to shy away and ignore that. It’s black and white for the whole country to see. The new system has helped in a big way. It’s a positive change in the GAA calendar in that the likes of teams like Roscommon are getting three or four championship matches in the summer on television. People are starting to see Enda Smith and these boys. The likes of Roscommon, Cork, Kildare — you’re going to see more All-Stars from these counties because they’re going to get more exposure, and rightly so.

“We’ll be leaning on Enda, and the status of being an All-Star. He’ll have a bigger X on his back. He’ll be conscious of that, and he’ll have to work even harder again. No doubt, he will. I can see that some of our lads have transformed physically in 12 months — that’s what the numbers are telling us. I hope those lads will look at Enda and say ‘why not me’. I hope they realise that they’re really close and can drive it on,” he concluded.