Murtagh and Rossies ready to embrace great expectations
By Kevin Egan
Historically, the immediate aftermath of a big win has always been the ideal time to line up Roscommon. If league positions correlated to population statistics, the Rossies would be in Division 4, but they’ve never been shy about emerging from the shadows to give a big gun a bloody nose.
Galway and Mayo usually get the brunt, while Tyrone, next on the hitlist for the newly crowned Connacht champions, won’t need to be told as the memory of their 0-14 to 0-12 loss in Omagh two summers ago will still be perfectly fresh.
The difference this time is that Roscommon plan on revelling in the idea of walking into the Hyde next Sunday with the mantle of favouritism on their shoulders.
“As footballers, you want to have more expectation than hope, maybe it's been hope for too long,” said team captain Diarmuid Murtagh.
“If you have expectation in the county, it means you're doing something right. That's where you want to be as a player, you want your supporters to come here expecting to win, it's a great position to be in.”
Murtagh was the scoring leader in Castlebar with 1-10 and he added another 0-7 in the Connacht final win over Galway, but there was no mistaking the star of the show.
Darragh Heneghan has now scored 3-5 in his last two games, not to mention playing a key role in the goal from his cousin Robert that kickstarted their comeback from eight points down in the first half.
“I should have finished it, I'd say, first of all!” was Darragh’s recollection of that first green flag.
“But then, thankfully, Rob has the soccer background and he has the poacher's instinct there and he tucked it away lovely.”
Heneghan’s approach to the game was highlighted on the Sunday Game with all the usual graphics and arrows by Peter Canavan and Cora Staunton, but the Michael Glaveys man gave a wonderfully simple description of his approach to football.
“There's grass in front of you, why not use it?”
Not that there was much grass to be seen as he spoke, with jubilant supporters in primrose and blue covering the playing surface.
“The Roscommon fans have been absolutely unbelievable this year. Kerry, New York, they followed us everywhere. It's like a 16th man out there when you hear the roars and the shouting and the encouragement you get off them. It's massive,” he said.
Based on this experience and the buoyant mood in the county, it should be more of the same when Tyrone come to town on Sunday (Dr Hyde Park, 2pm), with the game to be shown on GAA+.