MORAN POINTS TO THE FUTURE

Expect a lot of new faces in the Leitrim Senior team in 2025 if the enthusiasm and belief of manager Andy Moran is anything to go by as the County U20 footballers attempt to win their place in the knockout stages of the Eirgrid Connacht U20 Championship.

Leitrim drew with Sligo last Wednesday in Markievicz Park as the home side hit 1-2 in injury time to secure a 2-11 to 1-14 draw. It means that Leitrim face Roscommon in a must win game tonight (Wednesday April 17) with a place in the semi-finals at stake.

And Moran believes many of the players will make the step up to Senior level in quick order: “We’ve got really nice players, the beauty of what we’ve done with the Seniors getting up to Division 3, we knew we had these guys coming. For a number of reasons, it was nobody's fault at all, it didn’t really happen last year. They’ve kept fighting, kept doing their weights, got stronger and now they’re competing. 

“Putting them guys into a senior panel next year is going to be so exciting but all we’re looking for today is a good performance which we got. We’d have loved to have finished out the game, which we didn’t. But you have to remember, this is Sligo’s home patch, two times defending champions, their title on the line so it was a huge test of their character. For us, it is disappointing we didn’t win the game but great that we put in such a good performance.”

THAT'S FOOTBALL SAYS PHILOSOPHICAL JACK FOLEY AFTER LEITRIM'S DRAW WITH SLIGO

The new round-robin format is also aiding in the development of Leitrim’s next generation: “Disappointed but in fairness to the Connacht Council or whoever came up with this format, isn’t this just the best thing we’ve seen in a long time for a county like Leitrim, four games in front of big crowds on a Wednesday evening in a great competition.”

The Leitrim manager also believes the decision to withdraw players from the Senior squad has been vindicated by the U20 performances: “We actually said that we’d take one game as it comes. We played Galway, we thought we played very well against Galway for long periods, the last ten minutes ran away from us.

“We played well against Mayo and played well again here tonight so we’re taking one game at a time. This is about development - we made a big call with Barry, Jack, Jack Casey and Paul Moran and it didn’t pay off for us last Sunday in the Senior game but the evidence tonight is that it was the right call.”

For all that, the overriding emotion leaving Markievicz Park was this was a victory that got away from Leitrim: “Absolutely, I’m not even questioning that,” admitted Moran, “We’re absolutely disgusted we didn’t win from being six points up. But the point I’m going to make is if you had given it to me coming down here today, I’d have taken it.”