Ciarán Murphy: Roscommon now have the talent to burst bubbles outside of Connacht

Some memories of Roscommon off the top of my head from the last 30 years of watching them against Galway. Francie Grehan terrorising Jarlath Fallon for the guts of a decade. Man-child Séamus O’Neill marmalising the Galway midfield in Tuam in 2001.

Or, worst of all, an enduring image from the TV coverage of the 2017 Connacht final in Pearse Stadium. A bootcut jeans-wearing, flag-waving middle-aged man in a Roscommon T-shirt leading a gleeful pitch invasion at the end of a painful Connacht final defeat for the home team - shot and replayed over and over again in lingering slow-motion like a fully-clothed, extremely poorly-cast Baywatch extra.

Galway people are always so surprised when Roscommon beat them. It doesn’t matter how often it happens, it doesn’t matter how good Roscommon are, it’ll still come as a surprise.

If Roscommon make it three wins on the trot over Galway inside the last three months this Sunday, they will be peeling the Galway fans off their seats in shock.

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This of course in turn comes as no surprise to Roscommon people, who embrace their role as the party-poopers par excellence. Galway and Mayo exist in the Roscommon psyche only as pampered elites, grown fat and complacent while feasting on each other, only to be gleefully taken down by the team they can’t resist underestimating.

The game this week is a 6 to 5 and pick ‘em, as the Yanks would say. They were the two best teams in Division Two, both of them good enough to avoid defeat against Derry, who we’ve seen do okay in this championship so far.

Roscommon have a more settled midfield, an attack every bit as potent as Galway’s (if maybe lacking the all-out star quality of a Damien Comer or Shane Walsh), and if Roscommon have worries in their full-back line, then Galway would do well to remember that one good defensive display against Mayo will need to be backed up again this weekend.

The Division Two final was a game that Galway didn’t expect to lose, because it was against the Rossies, and because they had already been beaten by them, albeit with a weakened selection, the week before.

But it was a salutary reminder of just how doughty Roscommon are; their willingness to stick in games when things aren’t going quite to plan, and again the sheer joy that they take in winning games against Galway or Mayo.

But the framing of that victory in the aftermath underestimated how good Diarmuid Murtagh’s goal to win that game was. The defending was poor, as everyone was eager to point out, but the clean pair of heels he showed to weave his way inside the Galway defence, and the power and accuracy of the shot that followed, was undeniable class.

He didn’t even start that final, given the wealth of options at Roscommon’s disposal up front, with NUI Galway Sigerson Cup hero Cathal Heneghan, Cian McKeon, Conor Cox, and team captain Donie Smith all well capable of taking a score.

Perhaps the one thing that Roscommon have missed in recent years was a bit of variety up front, but they have that now with Enda Smith as a natural leader of the attack from centre forward. And he’s been freed to go in there because of the discovery of a sustainable, well-balanced midfield partnership during this year’s league.

Roscommon seem to have an endless supply of big, rugged, highly effective midfielders, going all the back to the 1980s, and in Ultan Harney and Eddie Nolan, they have another pairing in that mould.

Galway would probably love to be able to release Paul Conroy to a role in the half-forward line similar to the one currently being filled for Roscommon by Enda Smith, but they can’t afford to move him from the middle of the field.

Roscommon have the ability to beat Galway and Mayo, and they have the ability to repeatedly win promotion to the top division from the second tier. But since 2017, they’ve yo-yoed every year from Division Two to Division One, with three relegations and three promotions in that time.

And they haven’t been able to add many big championship victories against Division One teams from outside Connacht this century. They beat Cork and Kildare in 2003 on a tramp through the qualifiers, and beat Armagh in 2012, but more often than not, championship seasons have ended in disappointment, and often in fearful trimmings, once the parochial stuff west of the Shannon has been taken care of.

The challenge for Roscommon is still to bring that level of gleeful balloon-bursting on to the national stage - to fulfil a role similar in many ways to Offaly over a 20-year period from 1980, in both codes.

Not having the footballers might have been an excuse in the past, but it’s not an excuse available to them now.