Burke demands more bench impact after Dublin defeat

By Kevin Egan

Roscommon manager Davy Burke rejected the idea that his players were 12 points inferior to Dublin last Saturday evening, saying that the quality of the opposition magnified small differences between the sides.

“We’re operating at the top, top tier, that Dublin team is absolutely ruthless. Every percent is penalised so if anyone thinks that’s a 12-point game so be it,” was his reflection on his team’s first game in the All-Ireland series.

Dublin tacked on 2-2 at the end of the game to stretch the winning margin, and the difference in scores in the two halves – Dublin winning the first half by one point and the second by 11 – led one reporter to inquire if the trend of second half fade-outs is a worry.

“On sixty-one minutes, we had a mark at 0-16 to 0-13. A mark about 40 yards out and against the breeze probably should have gone short and worked a score and then we’re 0-16 to 0-14. And we wouldn’t be hearing too much from you about the second half so I wouldn’t agree with you there at all now,” was his bristly response.

“You make a couple of mistakes and they go down the field. You look at the pace in that second goal. It’s hard to live with that. You give the ball away cheap they’ll do that to you. Ultimately, a couple of our own things cost us.

“The breeze changed, would you believe it,” he continued. “We were against the breeze in both halves for whatever reason.

“Look, we’re not scoring enough. We kicked nine in the first half and we would have been expecting to kick 1-5 or 1-6 in the second half but we didn’t. Something to work on. Our attack play in the first half I was delighted with. I thought we opened up Dublin time and time again which we should do, we have quality players.”

One player who certainly caused Dublin problems was Conor Cox, and after a long run of fighting for minutes on the pitch this year, the Kerry native seemed to nail down his starting berth for a long time to come with four points, one mark and three from play.

“He has been burning it up the last month in training,” Burke said. “There were probably a few eyebrows raised as to why 'Coxy' was back in the starting team but we couldn’t keep him out. He’s been burning it up which is what you need. He hasn’t played football, he’s annoyed, and that’s it.

“I think we have a deep squad, getting a start isn’t easy for anyone. I think we have equal depth to our squad [as Dublin]. We didn’t get the same impact but I would challenge my boys next week now. We got zero impact today off the bench compared to what (Sean) Bugler and (Colm) Basquel offered Dublin. I think (Ultan) Harney, (Ben) O’Carroll, Keith Doyle, whoever else came on for us, need to give us more next week.”

Of course, it’s Mayo who Roscommon face at Hyde Park on Saturday (5pm). No team like Mayo to rub salt in Roscommon wounds, though Burke concluded by expressing his confidence in a strong Rossie reaction to this defeat.

“If any Roscommon man can’t get up to play Mayo in the Hyde, sure there’s no point to me travelling down the road. I’m not going to have to tell them boys how to play Mayo, we won’t have any issues there.

“If we had won today, Mayo were still coming. If we lost today, Mayo were still coming and if we drew today, Mayo were still coming,” he added.