DAVY BURKE’S friends and family suffer, but his limitless obsession will never go away.
Life as an inter-county manager is all-consuming, but his loved ones bear the brunt of it.
Birthday parties and other events are missed, especially if a match is on the cards.
Burke is a father, a husband and a son. Family understanding is vital, but their patience is always under stress.
The Kildare man is into his third year as Roscommon boss as they start another Connacht championship journey in London on Saturday.
Their relentless gaffer never stops – even when those closest to him lose out.
He said: “Yeah, absolutely, there’s no two ways about it, you have to be obsessive. If you want to get to the top tier of any walk of life, you have to be obsessive, you have to be selfish.
“You have to be a lot of things, and it’s not always the nicest thing for families, and not always the nicest thing for everybody. But in my opinion, I don’t know any other way.
“But I don’t think Ruby Walsh, Tony McCoy, I don’t think any of the top people in life make any apologies for it. I think it’s if you want to achieve something, you have to be all in, and all in means there’s fallout.
“Obviously, you try to limit that, but you have to be obsessive. And that fallout is just, it’s consuming you to an extent that they can’t match essentially.
“Consuming you to an extent that you might have no interest in a kid’s birthday party in the house! It doesn’t mean you don’t love the kid.
“I had a 40th birthday party and the following day we were playing Westmeath, and I just didn’t attend because there would be a fear of softening up, a fear I’d be there talking, people would be talking to you, that kind of thing.
“Whereas I have a job tomorrow to do, and I want to do it, and I want my headspace to be right.
“So again, that’s the little bit of fallout, when your mother and your wife’s ringing you, saying, ‘why didn’t you come to this party?’ That’s just an insight for you.”
Burke has no idea what a comfort zone is, and has no interest either.
He strives to get better all the time, and there is a void within him that can never be filled.
He led his native county to All-Ireland under-20 glory in 2018 and flung himself straight into senior inter-county management with Wicklow, before the Rossies called at the end of 2022.
Roscommon’s last championship silverware was a Connacht title in 2019, as they bowed out in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-finals to eventual champions Armagh.
And he hopes his endless ambition for more can rub off on his players when the serious business begins this weekend.
He said: “There’s no ceiling, nothing will ever be good enough for me. I’ll never be happy, that kind of way, so I’m happy that we’re moving forward.
“It’s probably a burning ambition, maybe you can never realise where you want to go.
“I’m not a naive thinker, but I’ll always be driving, looking over my shoulder at the next manager on the way, the next fella on the way, someone on the way to take your spot.
“I like to think I can instil that in the lads, and a lot of them would be similar to that, but when you have a group of 55 people, not everyone is the same, in any group of 55 people.
“Just to clarify, that’s a personal ambition in life that I have. That’s not a Roscommon thing, that’s just that I’d probably never satisfy myself in life, I always want to go, go, get better, improve, but that’s not a Roscommon thing.
“Obviously I’m the manager, so I’d like to instil that in my players as well, so I’m not saying we won’t achieve what we’re setting out to achieve.
“I’m just saying it’s very hard to satisfy when you always want more and more and you won’t stop.”
And Burke never wants the buzz to end either. Dealing with the Rossies has taken him to a different level, and anything below those standards will never be good enough no matter what comes next.
NEXT LEVEL
He said: “There’s no one with a gun to your head either.
“We do this because we enjoy it, and there’s massive buzz, there’s a thrill, the endorphins you get out of it, dealing with high achievers, high-level players. That’s the thing.
“This Roscommon group, the level of quality you walk into a dressing room, that’s where it begins and ends.
“I couldn’t do this if it wasn’t going into Kiltoom or to Hyde every night, being met by some of the top players in Ireland, with the application and attitude to match.
“So for me, there’s no hour I won’t put into this once that’s there. If I felt I wasn’t there, it’s not for me.
“I could never go anywhere else now having dealt with this quality of player.
“That’s the basic standard now, walk into that and you can try and make it work from there. That’s where it begins and ends for me.”
