‘Tadhg O’Rourke has been brilliant for me’ — Burke

Roscommon senior football manager Davy Burke has described Tadhg O’Rourke as a “brilliant” player to work with.

Roscommon GAA confirmed O’Rourke’s retirement earlier on Wednesday, and Burke has been praising the contribution of a player who represented his county 70 times since making his debut against Tyrone in 2017.

“Tadhg O’Rourke has been brilliant for me. He was an integral part of the set-up. He was vice-captain in my first year.

“He picked up an awful injury in the league last year and he did brilliantly to get back,” said the Roscommon boss.

After O’Rourke picked up an Achilles injury last year that ruled him out for up to 12 months, Burke told the Roscommon Herald: “Tadhg was a real man. From the first day we met him, he has been a trustworthy, loyal type of player. He’s a tough man, you’d love to go to war with him if you could play yourself.

“It’s a big blow because he’s played almost every minute of our league season. You’ll never get anything flashy with Tadhg but I can guarantee you that on Sunday, we might be seeing a hole or two that we hadn’t seen before. He’d be plugging those holes and doing the dirty stuff quietly. But we’ll just have to dust ourselves down. It’s case of next man up,” he said.