THE LAST POINT: Underdogs can have their day

Many of my good friends won't believe me when I write these words but sitting in Croke Park last Sunday, enduring rain and cold and wondering about my sanity, I actually felt sorry for Meath - I know, I can't believe I've actually written those words but there you are, I actually felt sorry for Meath and how far they've fallen.

Growing up in Finglas and long after I left the confines of Dublin 11, my heart was broken more times than I care to count by the fearsome men from the Royal County, a team both respected and loathed in equal measure by the Dubs - for a Leitrim perspective, just think of the Rossies, multiply by a hundred or a thousand, and you get some idea of what days in Croke Park used to be like when Dublin and Meath went at it.

Ollie Murphy, Bernard Flynn, Tommy Dowd, Trevor Giles, Colm O'Rourke, Liam Harnan, Robbie O'Malley, Liam Hayes, Gerry McEntee, John McDermott and Graham Geraghty   are  names to still send a shiver down the spines of us older  Dubs and it is why, no matter what the pundits say, we're always that bit cautious when it comes to facing our old enemies. 

Those Meath names are etched just as indelibly into the mind  every bit as vividly as the names Rock, Duff, Redmond, Whelan, etc, giving you some idea of the trauma inflicted on the city folk so it is quite a change to see Meath regarded now as underdogs and nobody disputes that one little bit, least of all Meath supporters.

Some will say that the Dubs have been lording over Leinster for so long that it is not a new story and there has been plenty of talk about doing something about the Provincial championships and all that but I just can't get my head around the fact that Meath are now the underdogs, the team that everyone would love to see win against the big boys! 

THE LAST POINT: LOOKING FOR REASONS, NOT EXCUSES

It got me thinking about exactly what makes an underdog? Is it tradition, or lack thereof? Is it winning games or is it purely size or something a little more ethereal? So perhaps  the precious tag of underdogs is not all it's cracked up to be if the once fearsome Meath have been added to the ranks of underdogs once only populated by Leitrim, Wicklow, Fermanagh and so many other so called minnows. 

In GAA terms, Cork are the biggest county there is, the most teams and largest player numbers yet right now, the Rebels are very much the underdogs in both football and hurling, Kerry and Limerick overshadowing them in their own province as they struggle to translate their prodigious numbers into success.

Meath and Kildare  are the seventh and eighth largest counties population wise,  220,826 and 247,774 respectively, numbers that dwarf the 35,199 we have here in Leitrim and even vastly ahead of Monaghan (65,288) and Roscommon (70,259) so numbers don't exactly guarantee success, even if it is certainly a factor.

Underdog is a tag Leitrim teams embrace like a warm blanket on a cold day - it is our default position and you only have to see us struggle past the likes of New York or London in the championship to know that being favourites isn't exactly something we're comfortable with - although our U20s are fast getting used to the tag (more of them later, I promise).

What makes Monaghan with just over 65,000 souls inside their borders so effective at Senior level while the Royals are struggling to regain lost glories. Numbers are an enormous plus, it certainly makes it easy and there is no doubt that Meath are still producing quality - after all, they won an All Ireland Minor just three years ago, but finding the mix at Senior level is eluding them despite the best efforts of some highly regarded coaching teams.

It used to be that if you could harvest a good Minor team every now and again, it'd would provide the backbone of a Senior team for about ten years - it worked for Leitrim after 1991, 1998 and 2014 and Dublin have been driven by a Minor team that famously lost to Tipperary back in 2011. But over the past decade, it is not Minor victories that predicts glory at Senior level -  Kerry's five Minor titles in a row has yielded a paltry single Sam Maguire in 2022.

THE LAST POINT: A THREE YEAR OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

But if you look at U21/U20 level, there is a direct correlation between competing and winning at that grade and going on to make an impact at Senior level so  that is why Leitrim's U20 displays in recent weeks could be so important for the Green & Gold's future.

I don't know if it is societal changes, pressure of exams, or kids simply finding there is a life outside football once they leave secondary school, but winning at Minor level is taking a back seat to what happens in the U20 grade. Back in  2021, Meath and Sligo both won Minor titles and Meath won the All-Ireland but three years on, both are in danger of missing their provincial finals.

The 2021 Minor competition was a one-and-done knockout  against the backdrop of Covid but now, both Meath and Sligo are struggling to beat teams they saw off rather easily three years ago.  Dublin's unprecedented level of success has been built on All-Ireland U21 winning teams in 2010, 2012,  2014 & 2017 - interestingly, they've only won one Minor title since 1984 but they've landed five U21 titles since their first in 2003 and look what followed at Senior level! 

The 2010 U21 edition provided James McCarthy, Rory O'Carroll, Jonny Cooper & Dean Rock and they just held off a Donegal team that included the legendary Michael Murphy, Mark McHugh and Paddy McGrath.

2014 saw Jack McCaffrey, Brian Fenton, Paul Mannion, John Small, David Byrne, Niall Scully and Cormac Costello take the title, without Ciaran Kilkenny who was out with a cruciate injury but he played his part in the 2012 victory, both over Roscommon as it turns out. Those Rossie teams were laden with players who would go on to win Connacht Senior titles.

Even the 2017 team, not regarded as talented as their predecessors, has seen Con O'Callaghan, Eoin Murchan, Brian Howard, Colm Basquel, Cian Murphy, Evan Comerford, Sean MacMahon and Paddy Small all harvested from a team that beat a Galway side that included Sean Andy Ó Ceallaigh, Kieran Molloy, Cillian McDaid, Peter Cooke, Cein D’Arcy; Sean Kelly, Michael Daly, Rob Finnerty and Dessie Conneely from their ranks.

Tyrone's 2021 Senior victory was backboned by members of their U21 team that beat Tipperary in a controversial decider in 2015 but those Tipp lads got some consolation in 2020 with an historic Munster SFC win while Galway's re-emergence as a force was on the back of U21 wins in 2011 and 2013.

All that reinforces  the notion that U20 is where it is at when it comes to developing teams and it is why this Leitrim U20 team is generating such excitement and we have precedence from the past to back that up.  Donal Wrynn, Shane Quinn, Shane Moran, Brendan Flynn, Niall Woods, James Rooney, Killian McGriskin, Alan McLoughlin &  Niall Brady all went on to start for the Seniors having appeared in the 2014 Connacht U21 Final - some are still shining ten years later. 

THE LAST POINT: LAOIS CRUSH LEITRIM'S EASTER RISING

The Minor team of the same year, who won the Connacht Minor League and who  would push  All-Ireland finalists Galway all the way in Connacht at U21 level in 2017, yielded Mark Plunkett, James Mitchell, Dean & Niall  McGovern, Oisin Madden, Keith Keegan, Jack Heslin, Ryan O’Rourke, Conor Dolan, Keith Beirne, Conor Gaffney and Pearce Dolan - all of whom saw significant game time for the Seniors in the years that followed.

So while I don't want to heap pressure on this young group of footballers, it is why this current team is so important for Leitrim's future. Last Wednesday's defeat against Roscommon will undoubtedly puncture the balloon but it doesn't negate the basic premise that this current Leitrim team have shown a fearlessness and resilience that speaks of something brewing for the future. And then, whether they win the Connacht B Final or not, maybe we won't be too worried about who is or isn't underdogs in the future.