A little bit of new money helped Diarmuid Murtagh achieve an incredible feat against Monaghan on Sunday, but when Roscommon fans assess their greatest attacking players, his body of work will take some beating.
The 2024 All-Star nominee hit a dozen points in the win against Monaghan, including four two-pointers. That took his overall tally to 19-333 (390) and meant he has the distinction now of being Roscommon's highest-ever scorer.
The magic moment was typically classy, the player moving to the right touchline, feigning a run to the right, jinking back left to manufacture a foot of space ahead of Killian Lavelle to take possession and getting a left-footed effort away instantly, before Dylan Byrne could get across to close him down.
That the previous top scorer was the late Dermot Earley snr – considered by many to be the best player never to win an All-Ireland – speaks for itself with his record of 17-335 (386) holding firm since his 1985 retirement, a time before Murtagh was even born.
Murtagh’s blistering scoring start to the 2025 Allianz Football League has included six two-pointers in his 0-25 haul and true, under old rules he would still be two points shy of Earley’s fantastic achievement, but it would only be delaying the inevitable by a round or two – and when all is said and done, he should hold quite the sizeable lead over Earley and maybe even his older brother Ciaráin, who sits third in the county's scoring charts.
If you’d a blank canvas to create a prototype Gaelic footballer, you’d include plenty of the attributes Murtagh possesses. Strong, good off both feet, a nimble step when moving at pace and, crucially, a keen eye for goal.
His attitude and temperament are a bonus too. "No huffing or puffing, whatever happens it’s about how can I get better the next day," is the way one former coach sums him up to RTÉ Sport.
As was oft said about Earley, if he was born in Dublin or Kerry he’d have a bagful of Celtic Crosses by now.
Murtagh’s rise to the top rung of Roscommon football, if not preordained, was certainly expected.
In 2012 he kicked half his team’s total as the Rossies retained the Connacht Minor title for the one, and to date only, time with a 0-10 to 0-08 win over a Mayo side containing Paddy Durcan, Stephen Coen and Diarmuid O’Connor amongst others.
Two years later he was kicking a late winning free in the All-Ireland Under-21 semi-final against Cork and while a star-studded Dublin proved too strong in the final in Tullamore, Murtagh still plundered an eye-catching 2-03.
(Sidenote: In between those two All-Ireland campaigns, Murtagh could be seen with a Longford crest on his chest as he starred in their second-ever Leinster vocationals inter-county championship title, but the Midlanders couldn’t stop him from returning across the border).
So it was no surprise that John Evans gave him his championship debut in 2014 off the bench against Leitrim with his brother Ciaráin beating him to the 15 jersey for his own first Connacht SFC appearance.
With older brother Brian there before them, it meant that the St Faithleach’s family entered that unusual sphere of having three siblings on the one inter-county team at the same time.
Since then it’s been pretty much a case of Murtagh racking up the appearances and the scores with his 100th day in a Rossie jersey coming in last year’s FBD final win over Galway.
Some of those 19 green flags have been memorable too.
The first came on his very first league start as he rattled the net in the comfortable Division 3 win over Limerick in 2014, while a pair of three-pointers against Galway have bolstered the county’s trophy cabinet.
The first of those was a low finish that led the way to a Connacht title in 2019 and then there was the late winning goal to seal the Division 2 title at Croke Park in 2022 – the player slaloming past five players before unleashing a crashing shot to the top corner for one of the goals of the season.
And for the 30 year old, who once considered retirement after suffering a detached retina in training in 2018, the new rules might offer him a further lease of life.
"I’m enjoying them, I think everyone is. Obviously there was change needed," he told RTÉ Sport after Sunday’s hard-fought win over Monaghan.
"If there’s less supporters going to the game because they don’t like it then it doesn’t create an atmosphere for us players. It needed something to change."
Helter-skelter has accompanied Roscommon’s march to six points from six.
In the opener against Down, with the elements playing its part, Davy Burke’s side trailed by five at the break and had an interval deficit of four to counter against Monaghan while fending off of a late Louth revival in between those victories.
"Sometimes when you’re playing with a wind like that you can be very panicky on the ball," Murtagh added after the weekend's win.
"You don’t want to be shooting crazy shots; you don’t want to force it, keeping the other team in the game. Sometimes it’s hard to get ahead and push on."
And with Murtagh now in his second decade playing for the Rossies, pushing on is very much the aim.
Division 2 football is no longer the death knell to All-Ireland ambitions that it once seemed as Dublin and Armagh have shown over the last two seasons.
With Murtagh leading the scoring charge and an incredible attacking cast around him, who knows where Roscommon will end up in a few months’ time?
Watch Tipperary v Cork in the Allianz Hurling League on Saturday from 7.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch Allianz League Sunday from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates around the country on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
