Davy Burke: ‘It’s huge. They needed a result like today. They needed to go out and do that – perform, and beat a top team’

The Rossies travelled into the Omagh den of Tyrone as 5/2 underdogs, having won just two and drawn one of their 11 previous league and championship matches in 2024.

They proceeded to deliver a scintillating first half against the 2021 All-Ireland champions, and then held on bravely in the second half to prevail by 0-14 to 0-12.

Their reward is an All-Ireland quarter-final date next weekend against one of Kerry, Donegal or Armagh.

“It’s huge,” Burke beamed afterwards. “In fairness to those lads, they’re playing for Roscommon a long, long time. They needed a result like today. They needed to go out and do that – perform, and beat a top team – and that’s what they’ve done today.

“Kerry, Donegal or Armagh are our three potential oppositions next weekend, and sure we’ll get nothing easy there. But we’ll go to Croke Park full of confidence. Two wins in a row, having lost a number of games in a row.

“But we were playing a very high level of football for a very long time, and I think that went a little bit under the radar, the level of football we were playing.”

All bar one of Roscommon’s 14 points came from open play, the entire tally shared by four forwards – Donie Smith and Diarmuid Murtagh with 0-4 apiece, Conor Cox (one free) and Daire Cregg with 0-3 each.

They led by 0-9 to 0-3 at the break. Asked if that first half had been up there with the best 35 minutes they have produced under his stewardship, Burke replied: “Yeah, probably that and maybe Mayo in the first half last year. It was definitely up there, but they were really hungry today.

“We’ve been disappointed with results lately, but we knew we were knocking on the door. We played Dublin and Mayo five times this year – they’re not bad teams! I think a lot of people missed that; we didn’t miss it, though. We knew the level we were operating at had to get better, and I think we got better at a few things.”

The Kildare native was equally effusive in praise of both their attacking and defensive efforts.

“We played them here in the first round of the National League and watched Tyrone forwards kick points for fun from around the ‘D’. We said we wouldn’t leave here today having let that happen,” he revealed.

“Isn’t the great thing today that we’ve lovely forwards combined with a nice defensive plan?” he remarked. “It’s easy having lovely forwards, but when we close down the ‘D’ as well … it’s a lovely plan and fair play to the boys. Like, David Murray is every bit as important as Daire Cregg to me.”

Neither Brian Dooher nor Feargal Logan was available for interview afterwards, no doubt fuelling speculation about their future intentions after four years as joint-managers of Tyrone. They still have two years to run on their current deal.