Moran chuffed with Leitrim's progress despite U20 Shield Final loss

Leitrim may have suffered a disappointing 11 point loss at the hands of Mayo in the Philly McGuinness Cup Final last Saturday but as far as Andy Moran was concerned, this year’s Connacht U20 Championship had served its purpose by developing players he expects to graduate quickly to the County Senior side.

Mayo’s 3-11 to 0-9 victory was quite a turnaround from the historic 3-12 to 0-16 defeat they suffered in Ballinamore but Moran, witnessing the fallout in his native county, expected a backlash last Saturday: “Mayo were under a lot of pressure today, the boys are all personal friends of mine, they were getting a lot of grief over the last couple of weeks.

“They came here on a mission. We haven’t been able, if I’m being honest, we have tried even since the Sligo game to pick it up and we haven’t been able to but the young lads are learning a lot.”

For all that, the Leitrim boss still regards the campaign as a success: “In terms of the year, I’m absolutely chuffed with our boys, you can see green shoots of Senior footballers - there are seven or eight of them will go straight into the Senior panel, four of them are already in there, four or five more will be coming with them. 

“It is massively positive in terms of beating Mayo the first day, beating Sligo when we should have won, we’d have taken that at the start of the year. We have seen what Jack Foley and Barry McNulty have done, I would look at the likes of Darren Cox, Ben Guckian, Arek Oberwan, those boys are ready, they don’t need anything else. 

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“The point in taking the two teams was to have them ready - they’ve been training with the Seniors for eight or nine months, they’ve proved they can compete against really top players who will play Senior Inter-county football for Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Roscommon. You saw the performance of Arek today, Arek is ready to play, ready to move - we won’t be minding him, he is ready to play.”

Yet there was still valuable lessons to absorb with Moran himself pointing out that Leitrim again ended with men off the field due to two yellows and black cards: “We have to realise these young lads are learning a lot - you look at Darren Cox and Paul Honeyman and in the course of the four or five games we have played, one of them has got sent off in four games. 

“Coxy plays well, he gets huge attention, Honeyman plays well he gets huge attention but this is what this is about, it is about learning and for these guys to get better, to understand you can’t let your team down like that. 

“They understand that - they’re great lads, absolutely two of the most talented boys in Leitrim but they’re going to get huge attention because they’re really, really players. But they just need to learn and this is what this is.”

Looking back on the game, Moran agreed that Mayo had upped their performance: “They did, I think they went through it in the first play and then for the next 20 minutes we dominated the game but we just didn’t take our scores. Even at the start of the second half, I looked at James Mannion and said ‘how is it only two-one?’ - we dominated the ball but just couldn’t find the scores.

“Obviously real attention on Paul Honeyman, real attention on Ben, Barry and Coxy and that’s the way it goes, that’s the nature of the game, just have to push on, learn our lessons but again, not going away from it, hugely positive in terms of what we do - the likes of Paddy Keane and these guys are big losses. We can’t afford to be losing one or two, we need our best 15 on the field all the time.”

Had Leitrim won and advanced to the All-Ireland B series, they would have done so without Barry McNulty and Jack Foley: “The plan to be honest, once we got beaten by Roscommon, was to use Barry and Jack, they were going to be playing Tailteann Cup, that was always the plan. Use them for the U20 Connacht Championship and then bring them back in.”

Ever the evangelist, Moran also stressed the positives of Leitrim’s campaign in 2024 at Senior and U20 level: “We were in Ballinamore after a hugely disappointing game for our U20s and the Roscommon journalist said ‘what a year for Leitrim, you get promoted to division 3, you’re hugely competitive in the Connacht U20 championship’ and the three of us looked at each other and nearly started laughing because you’re so used to just talking about wins and losses.

“We need to start saying that there has been huge development - we’re out of Division 3 for the second time ever, we just beat Mayo in the Connacht U20 championship, there are footballers coming and we need to promote them and tell them how good they are or what’s the point? That’s what we’re trying to do, create an environment where they can go and express themselves as Senior footballers.”

Moran referred to last year’s Tailteann Cup campaign as driving on the successful Allianz NFL Division 4 promotion push this year, even without a win in the competition: “People will say we had a disappointing campaign, for me we had a hugely positive campaign and I’ll tell you why - we came back from New York and everyone showed up, everyone stuck at it and nobody wilted. 

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“Yes, we didn’t win a game, against Fermanagh we had it back level in Pairc Sean, we did well against Antrim up there and possibly could have beaten Wexford in Parnell Park. If people are just looking for wins and losses, it wasn’t great but if we’re looking for developing players, developing Leitrim as a footballing county, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

And he stressed that Leitrim’s players need to be celebrated for what they are achieving: “They need to be celebrated - us three lugs here have been around the country with our bottom lips out because we only got to eight points in the League and now we’re promoted and we’re still not talking highly about it. 

“The likes of Donal Wrynn, Shane Quinn, James Rooney, these boys who have been trying for years to get out of Division 4. Now they have an opportunity to go to Division 3 and stay in it - we played a challenge match up in O’Moore Park last Friday against Tipperary and if you go up there and just walk around it and see the facilities that Laois have and we’re just coming up out of the same division as them and we don’t have half the resources, half the population and we pushed them and got out of Division 4. I think they should be celebrated for the effort they’ve done over the last three years.”