Ryan O'Rourke relieved by victory as Leitrim star is named on the GAA.ie Team of the Week

The latest Leitrim forward to be nominated for the GAA.ie Team of the Week, hat-trick hero Ryan O’Rourke talked of relief after Sunday’s dramatic Allianz NFL Division 4 victory over Wexford in Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada rather than any outpouring of joy.

Ryan was named at centre-forward on the Team of the Week in a forward line featuring Con O’Callaghan, David Clifford and Shane McGuignan and when asked about the drama of Leitrim’s late match winning penalty,Ryan said “I just feel relieved. We were probably disgusted with our second half there to be honest. 

“We nearly let it slip, a disappointing second half - we didn’t get enough scores on the board, they got back into it and we were probably lucky in the end so relieved.”

Ryan admitted that he didn’t have a good view of the incident: “I don’t know but just lucky with Barry in the square there, it has worked a few times. We got a goal against London as well, just a high ball in and got a bit of luck, so happy with it. There were a lot of bodies there, I didn’t get a right look at it but I’m just glad.”

The Fenagh man felt that Leitrim’s ability to keep going was crucial: “That was it, just keeping in there. We were three or four up and their goal meant it was going to be tit for tat and just a bit of luck in the end, probably unlucky with the square ball before that, not sure how close it was, probably just inside it.”

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Yet he admitted there was some tough words at halftime about workrate and the need to keep working hard: “There was space in there but we spoke at halftime about not getting enough hard runs to get the ball and we should have got more scores on the board, what was it, a 15, 20 minute spell with no score so that is disappointing and we’ve got to look back on that this week.”

Ryan O'Rourke fires home the match winning penalty against Wexford Picture: Willie Donnellan

As for the rest of the campaign, Ryan believes Leitrim won’t get carried away with the win over Wexford: “It is very early days, we’ve been here before. Carlow next week and they were on four points before this weekend and it is never an easy place to go. We’ll just keep the heads down and try to learn from our mistakes today.

“Having six points at this stage is great, the way we played today, would that be good enough for the last four games? Probably not so we’ve got to keep the feet on the ground and get to work this week.”