‘We’re tipping along nicely’ — Burke

Sooner rather than later, the tide needs to start turning in Roscommon’s favour this season. Needless to say, Davy Burke knows that rewriting the history books in Dr. Hyde Park next Sunday would be a good place to start.

The manager appreciates what taking Mayo’s scalp means to Rossies near and far. Unlike last year, however, when Roscommon had some momentum on the back of a positive Division One League campaign to ambush Kevin McStay’s charges in their own back yard, 2024 hasn’t provided any compelling evidence that the “Primrose and Blue” can repeat the trick next Sunday.

Apart from a disappointing league campaign where Roscommon were relegated, history isn’t in the home side’s corner either. Not since Gerry Lohan rescued victory from the jaws of defeat in the 2001 Connacht final have Roscommon experienced that unconfined giddiness that comes from beating Mayo in Roscommon Town.

“I can’t believe that it’s 23 years since Roscommon beat Mayo in the Hyde in the championship, given the talent and quality that’s there. To me, that’s just mental,” revealed Burke.

Despite the disappointment rooted in the spring, the break has done Roscommon the world of good, according to the manager. Not every team have enjoyed that luxury, and Burke feels that his players have used the time wisely.

“We’re tipping along nicely. We’ve gone off the radar since the Derry game. It’s exactly what we wanted to do.

“We got a few days away together. We got real quality work done. The majority of our injuries are cleared up. For the first time all year, we’re going to have our best squad, or very close to it, available to us," he revealed.

Cathal Heneghan will be missing on Sunday after picking up a knee injury, but Burke is hopeful that the Michael Glaveys forward can feature in the All-Ireland Series. The news isn’t so good on Evan Flynn whose shoulder injury will rule him out of the rest of the intercounty season. But Keith Doyle and Ben O’Carroll are back in full training, although whether they feature against Mayo — from the start at least — remains to be seen.

“Ben trained for the first time with us last week. Obviously, it’s a great boost to have a player of that quality coming back into the fold. We’re very excited to see what Ben can bring to us.

“Keith is a big, physical man, which is something we’re not blessed with. The job he does for us is very specialised, so to have him putting his hands up for selection is great. It’s a case of the more bodies back, the better from our point of view.

“Both lads have missed the guts of three months. You’re thinking of sharpness and a Connacht semi-final against Mayo who are road tested from New York. We’ll have to see how they get on this week, but it would be a big ask (to start against Mayo). But, at the same time, they’re two fair players even though time probably isn’t on their side,” he admitted.

Despite a league campaign that ended with Roscommon falling through the relegation trapdoor, Burke feels that the residue from failing to consolidate their Division One status hasn’t filtered into the mindset of the players.

“These boys are fairly resilient. Obviously, it’s not their first time in this situation heading into a championship. I’ve been delighted with the maturity of the squad. Relegation isn’t the end of the world. We competed very well in the vast majority of our Division One games.

“The Galway game was the one that cost us. We should have won that game. Ultimately, it was the difference between staying in Division One and relegating Galway. So it’s far from doom and gloom on our side. We’ll leave that to the outside noise. There’s nothing better to look forward to than a new stand being opened up in the Hyde and Mayo coming to town to get these boys going,” he enthused.

So have Roscommon been gearing their season towards the championship?

“It’s one way of looking at it. When you come in as a new manager, you put a greater emphasis on hitting the ground running. We really went after the likes of Tyrone and Galway early on last year, and we got points on the board. But we had our fair share of luck too, a couple of bounces of the ball that went our way. If you look through our league campaign this year, we got none of that. People tend to miss these sorts of things.

“Look, there’s no doubt that we’ve targeted later in the season. It was a plan, but it was also forced on us a bit between St. Brigid’s and Castlerea, and everything else like injuries. So I would feel we’re mentally a lot fresher right now than we were this time last year.

“Those first few days after the Derry game, it felt as if it was the first time we could breathe this season. The league comes so thick and fast. You’ve either another Division One team coming to town or you’re travelling, which may incorporate an overnight stay. You’re scrambling for pitches with the weather. So those couple of days after the Derry game felt like we could take the foot off the pedal a small bit and relax.

“You can manage minutes. You don’t have to push a fella who mightn’t be at 100 per cent. You can get some quality tactical work too in terms of planning for Mayo, and further down the road. The Connacht championship is very important, but there’s an All-Ireland Series coming too. We have to get a bank of work done that’s going to tie us through until July,” he explained.

Mayo took care of business professionally in New York, which suggests that they’re where they want to be ahead of visiting a ground that has been very good to them for over two decades.

“Mayo are a right good side. The biggest thing I took out of the New York game is that they came out of it injury-free. They got more minutes into Paddy Durcan and Ryan O’Donoghue. Absolutely, they’re a very good side. They dismissed us in MacHale Park a month ago. Obviously, we’re hurting from that because we just weren’t at it in the second half. That did sting us, so we’re hoping to put that right.

“I really do think it’s a 50-50 game. People are saying we played for 50 or 60 minutes but, in the end, we probably used 33 or 34 players in the national league. I’m not sure we had that number of players ready for Division One. We’ll get down to our best 20 players next Sunday and you’d be hoping to see a different animal.

“It’s a big game and we’re heading to Hyde Park on Sunday to win the match. If we don’t win it, we’ll be disappointed. There’s no other way of dressing it up. But there’s still an All-Ireland Series coming regardless of what happen on Sunday. We have to be ready for that,” he highlighted.

And what of the outside noise that suggests that this team’s best days are behind them?

“In Division One, we finished with 3 points. If we had beaten Galway, it would have been a case of job done. We were very competitive in the majority of the games. Towards the end, when you were dropping into deep reserves, a gap probably opened up.

“But it wasn’t as if we were cast adrift at the bottom of the table of that we weren’t competitive. The narrative on the outside seems to be completely different from the narrative on the inside. We were frustrated. We were disappointed with some of our stuff, but we’re not far off. 

"If you were to listen to some people on the outside, you’d swear we were timed every week, lost seven games in a row and were essentially no good. That wouldn’t be our take on things,” he concluded.

In other words, it's time to prove the doubters wrong.