‘If you want to get to the top tier, you have to be obsessive’ - Burke

Watching Davy Burke’s emotions oscillate over the course of this league campaign has been quite the experience. 

Few managers were – or are – as positive about the new rules of Gaelic football and his exuberance was evident while Roscommon exploded out of the blocks with three excellent wins over Down, Louth and Monaghan.

But in the latter stages of the league, there was his disgust at the team’s performance against Cavan, drawing the focus of the country when he said that Roscommon “had no business in Division One”, his animated reaction to the play leading up to Kieran Martin’s equaliser in Mullingar, and his despondence at the team’s failure to fire in the closing stages of last Saturday night’s league final.

But then, that’s the only way he knows how to be.

“There's no two ways about it, you have to be obsessive. If you want to get to the top tier of any walk of life, you have to be obsessive, you have to be selfish, you have to be a lot of things, and it's not always the nicest thing for families, and not always the nicest thing for everybody. But in my opinion, I don't know any other way,” admits.

Burke was speaking at the launch of the 2025 Connacht SFC, stating that he felt there was no change out of 50 hours to be an intercounty manager in the modern game.

“But I don't think Ruby Walsh, Tony McCoy, I don't think any of the top people in life make any apologies for it. 

I think it's if you want to achieve something, you have to be all in, and all in means there's fallout. Obviously, you try to limit that, but you have to be obsessive. And that fallout is just, it's consuming you.

“Consuming you to an extent that you might have no interest in a kid's birthday party in the house! It doesn't mean you don't love the kid. 

"I had a 40th birthday party last Saturday evening, and the following day we were playing Westmeath, and I just didn't attend because there would be a fear of softening up, a fear I'd be there talking, people would be talking to you, that kind of thing.

“I have a job tomorrow to do, and I want to do it, and I want my headspace to be right, so again, that's the little bit of fallout, when your mother and your wife's ringing you, saying, why didn't you come to this party? That’s just as an insight for you,” he revealed.

Neither is that just something that he brings to the Roscommon job, or even just to football management.

“I'll always be driving, looking over my shoulder at the next fella on the way, someone on the way to take your spot, so how do you keep going? I always want to go, go, get better, improve, but that's not a Roscommon thing. 

"Obviously, I'm the manager, so I'd like to instill that in my players as well. I'm not saying we won't achieve what we're setting out to achieve, I'm just saying it's very hard to satisfy when you always want more and more and you won't stop”.

A dangerous obsession, so?

“There's no one with a gun to your head either. We do this because we enjoy it, and there's massive buzz, there's a thrill, the endorphins you get out of it, dealing with high achievers, high-level players. 

"That's the thing. This Roscommon group, the level of quality you walk into a dressing room, that's where it begins and ends," he concluded.