Roscommon had many heroes in Omagh on Saturday evening, making history with a first championship win over Tyrone at the sixth attempt.
And one of them, Diarmuid Murtagh, afterwards revealed how they had learned from their skewed timing in 2023.
“Last year we kind of fell off the cliff a small bit coming into the Cork (preliminary quarter-final) because we put so much into the games previous to that,” he told the Irish Independent.
“It doesn’t always work like that but we kind of knew, the way this championship worked, that the game against Cavan was always going to be huge … if we lost (to Dublin and Mayo), like we did, it was going to be a huge game to stay in the championship.
“So we always knew that we needed to be peaking at this time of year. And look, we seem to be playing with a lot of confidence now and it’s important to bring it into next weekend.”
That will be against Kerry, Armagh or Donegal. Based on Tyrone’s disjointed efforts in front of barely 6,000 Healy Park fans, the bar is about to rise significantly. But that won’t deter Davy Burke or his players, who have found their mojo when it matters most.
Prior to beating Cavan, in a de facto play-off, Roscommon hadn’t won a match for 16 weeks. Their 2024 record up to then, in league and championship, was one win and one draw from 10 matches; they had been relegated from Division 1 and lost their first three SFC outings.
Now compare their 2023 form graph at the same juncture, two games into the All-Ireland round-robin: played 11, won six, drawn one and lost four. What happened next? They lost to Kildare and then Cork by a single point landed deep in injury-time. Season over.
Whereas this year, it’s as if their season has begun in mid-June. Their first 35 minutes against a scattergun Tyrone, defending in packs and punishing on the counter to construct a 0-9 to 0-3 lead, was the best they have been in their two years under Burke.
Tyrone duly emptied the bench – they had little choice. They came within a point late on but could have no gripes over a 0-14 to 0-12 defeat, one that crystalises how far they have fallen since the unlikely All-Ireland high of 2021.
Where to next for Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan? Nobody seems to know. Over an hour after the match ended, media waiting outside their dressing-room were told Tyrone’s management had slipped away.
Instead, the day belonged to a remarkably efficient Roscommon who tallied just three wides. “It’s one of those games that Roscommon people love, when we’re up against it, backs to the wall,” said Murtagh. “But it’s important for us that we back it up.”
All bar one of their points came from play, with Murtagh, Donie Smith (0-4 apiece) and Daire Cregg (0-3) all vying for Man of the Match. Murtagh hobbled off late on, struggling with cramp and a “small” heel problem, but insisted he should be fine for the quarter-finals.
His manager admitted the one-week turnaround will be a physical and mental challenge, not that he seemed to mind. “Would you rather be off this weekend? Possibly. Would you rather come in on the back of a win? Probably,” Burke reflected.
“We’re mad to get into Croker. Every time I’ve been there, I’ve managed two or three times now with them, we’ve performed every time. We’re not afraid of Croke Park at all.”
