Burke relishes new rules as Rossies win another shootout
By Kevin Egan
Whether he’ll still feel the same after Roscommon lose a chaos-filled shootout is something that we’ve yet to learn, but right now, there are very few figures in Gaelic football that are as enthused about the new rules as Rossies manager Davy Burke.
His charges are sitting pretty on top of Division Two of the Allianz Football League, and for the second time in two home games, they had come back from behind to record a big win over Ulster opposition, enthralling supporters in the process.
“It's great, the new game, I love it anyway. This is never over anymore, it's a brilliant game of football and it's swings and roundabouts so easily,” he told reporters after last Sunday's home win over Monaghan.
“Myself and Mark Doran (coach), who I'm loving working with by the way, we were only talking about this walking out on the field the other night. We actually now have a creative game, it has reinvigorated us as coaches because it went stale. It's class now.”
Even if someone wanted to pick holes in the performance, it wasn’t easy – and Burke was not about to go down that road. The topic of missed goal chances was raised, but the Confey native was still happy to see his players follow their attacking instincts.
“There's two ways of looking at that; can you work the scoreboard against the breeze? Could we have fisted a few scores? But we told them before they went out that we wanted them to enjoy themselves. Forwards want to go for goal don't they? So we left four out there. Another day," he said.
“We're all sick and tired of hearing about Roscommon having lovely forwards, let them play a bit of football and express themselves and I thought we did today. Yes we left a lot behind us, but hopefully it might click down the road.”
There were kind words for his defensive players too, as well as further encouragement for supporters, with news of further reinforcements well on the way to full fitness.
“Pearse Frost, I thought was exceptional in the corner, every ball that went in he came out with. We know how good Pearse Frost is, we're delighted to have him and that gives us options to push other lads out the field. Ruaidhrí Fallon came off the bench for Brian Stack and really, really impressed.
“We've to try find a place for David Murray on this team and we can't find one for him. That's how she works. The best teams, what do they have? They have a little bit of depth so we're trying to grow a bit of depth.
“Daire Cregg, Shane Killoran, Enda Smith, Colm Neary. You can add David Murray and Niall Daly to the list, we'd be here all week. They'll all be returning in the next week or so, there's no one ‘missing’ missing. Every one of those boys will be back before Cavan.”
And so to Páirc Tailteann next Sunday, to take on another team that is averaging over 20 points a game. Maybe that’ll be the shootout that Roscommon doesn’t win?
“I was up in Newry last night, that's a right good Meath team. Very big and strong and it's looks like they have a rake of work done so we'll get the full pipe in Navan,” Burke replied.
*See this week's paper for report on the Roscommon vs Monaghan game.