Daire Cregg privileged to represent people of Roscommon

By John Harrington

It’s the Tuesday after the Sunday and Daire Cregg is looking a lot fresher than you’d imagine most Rossies are after the craic that surely followed their epic Connacht Final victory over Galway.

He and his team-mates enjoyed themselves on Sunday after the game and for a few hours again on Monday, but it’s easy to believe him when he says they’ve already parked the celebrations and are fully focused on the challenge of playing Tyrone in the All-Ireland SFC on Sunday, May 24.

“It's actually nice in a way to have the game in two weeks' time because you could get caught up in the madness of it all if you let it, so we're trying to avoid that as best we can and move on,” says Cregg.

“We’ll have our gym today and training tomorrow night, so preparation moves on.

“It's funny, the wheel just keeps turning because it's only a couple of weeks ago we were talking about getting ready for New York and all of a sudden you're on to Tyrone now. That’s the way it works and I enjoy it that way.”

Cregg might have already moved on mentally and emotionally from the Connacht Final win, but that’s not to say he didn’t enjoy every moment of it.

Days like that are specials ones, the reason he makes the massive effort he does to be the best footballer he can be, so you can be sure he revelled in the victory.

“You have to soak it in, if you don't soak it in, you'd be wasting your time playing,” says Cregg.

“The last few minutes when Comer got the goal, you're kind of saying we're under a bit of pressure here, but it's just about getting the kick out then and we probably know we'll get a couple of opportunities to kick scores at the far side, so that's what we've done.

“The moments afterwards you have to soak them in with the family on the pitch or with Roscommon people on the pitch.

“You kind of have to embrace them few moments and couple of hours. Because at the end of the day you're playing for yourself, which is obviously important, you're playing for your family, but then you're playing for the wider people of Roscommon, so it's a privilege to be able to represent all them and you don't take that lightly so it's nice to enjoy a few minutes with them.”

Cregg made a big impact as substitute in the Connacht Final, converting a free and kicking a crucial two-pointer when Roscommon came with their late match-winning charge.

One of their best players during the League, he was red-carded in the Connacht SFC quarter-final against New York so missed the semi-final win over Mayo and wasn’t able to force his way back into the XV for the Connacht Final.

Rather than feel sorry for himself, he used it as a source of motivation.

“I had a couple of hours of disappointment with that (red card) and then you get over it and it's about training well in the two weeks before to make sure that you're putting yourself in contention for a Connacht final and that the lads that are playing are seeing that you're trying to drive it on as well and that you're putting a bit of pressure on them and you're trying to help the group.

“Everyone else was doing it, so why shouldn't I? That was kind of the mentality after the New York game, after the sending off, and then obviously after the Mayo game the following two weeks into the Connacht final it was the same thing.

“So while it was disappointing it probably helped me to push on a couple of weeks afterwards and make sure that I put myself in a position that I could get an opportunity to play in a Connacht final.

“You don't want a situation where you're walking back into a 15, and that's definitely not the case with us. Obviously I'd love to have been in the last day but, when you're on the bench, you know you're probably going to get an opportunity to do something or to get a few moments to play.

“And it's about taking that chance. I think I did that okay at the weekend. In fairness I think everyone that came on...that's been a key theme throughout the year, that anyone that has come on has had an impact, whether it's a turnover, winning a kickout or getting a score or making a big defensive play. I think everyone has nearly had an impact.

“So it's very hard to pick anyone over another player, especially when the lads performed so well against Mayo. Yeah, the red card was very disappointing but you just have to move on from that and try to help the group in whatever.”

Even if Cregg was sort of person who’d throw a strop about not winning his place back in the team it wouldn’t have been entertained by the rest of the group.

The All Blacks rugby team once had a famous 'no dickheads' policy to weed out self-entitled players who might damage the team ethic.

“That's a policy we would have,” says Cregg. “And in previous teams, since I've came in in '23, we've never had any dickheads essentially.

“We've always had really good personalities and really good people and I think that's a fundamental core of success. And to be fair, every county has that.

“If you go and meet players from any county, they're all good people at the back of it all. We have the same in Roscommon and it's an important part of it, without doubt, because you have to have a relationship.

“You have to enjoy the company of someone that you're going to war with. And you have to respect them, and that's what we do. It's a big part of it.”

That might be one of the reasons why the Roscommon public have taken this team so much to their hearts, though it also surely helps that they play such an exciting brand of football.

“Of course,” says Cregg. “Sure if any of us go to a game, if we come up here to Croke Park to watch a game, you want to see an exciting brand of football where there's turnovers.

“As a player you don't want turnovers, you don't want to be giving the ball away, but for supporters that ping-pong nature of a game is what's really enjoyable. The rules have obviously added to that.

“The Roscommon people would get behind us regardless, they have done in previous years. And in fairness to them, they're great people to turn out all the time, regardless of how well we're going.

“Having a Roscommon management team definitely does have an impact on that as well, on that connection. It's something we do go after and that we're trying to build, that connection with the supporter base and the Roscommon people because as I said earlier, we're performing for them.”

The big question now is how far this Roscommon team can go from here?

Cregg raised some eyebrows last year when he said they had “a really good chance of winning an All-Ireland”, but the nature of their Connacht championship success this year vindicates that view.

“Sure, anyone that's playing football, they'd be telling you a lie if they didn't (have that ambition)”, says Cregg.

“Anyone who dreams of playing football or wants to play football wants to win an All-Ireland but that's a long way away or a far away goal.

“We've Tyrone in two weeks time and that's another special championship day in the Hyde.

“You get the opportunity to play a Connacht final and then you get the opportunity to go back to the Hyde again and play Tyrone with probably 20,000 people watching it and that's a huge day again against a really good competitive team who we've played a lot in the past and we're really focused on that game to be honest.

“That's another opportunity to try and perform and for a panel of players to try and execute what we want to do.”