Pearse Park victory means so much for Leitrim after Longford League defeat - Moran

Winning in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park meant so much more than simply locking down a preliminary quarter-final spot in the Tailteann Cup according to manager Andy Moran, highlighting Leitrim’s poor record at the Longford venue down through the years and the impact of a League defeat at the same venue earlier this year.

Asked by the Observer after the game what it meant to come away with the 2-12 to 0-17 victory over Leitrim’s neighbours, Moran said “Yeah, thrilled  - this place means a lot to Leitrim people, I don’t think we’ve had too many victories over the years here. 

“We came up during the League and that game was the one that hurt the most. Particularly for the players because of the rivalry but to get a win here, you know better than me, it means an awful lot to the county and means an awful lot to the team.”

Crucially, it means that at the very worst, Leitrim will have home advantage for a preliminary quarter-final over the weekend of June 8-9, with Moran not exactly sure if his team will actually get to play at home given the redevelopment works at Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada!

“Where is our home? Where are we allowed to play it? That’s the toughest question of the lot! We could be back here in Pearse Park, you never know what will happen,” said the former Mayo star, “The big thing for me and I’ll be honest with you, we’ve played 11 games this year between League and Championship and we’ve won seven.

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“Now that’s a huge percentage, and I’m not trying to talk down to Leitrim or our team, but that’s huge for us. We know we’re going to be playing Kildare and Kildare should be up mid table or the top of Division 2, they know that, they gave Longford a good hammering, they gave Waterford a good hammering so we know what we’re up against.

“We’ll go out, try and best and see where it takes us but this is the standard where we want to get to, we’ll give it a good rattle and see where we’re at.”

Missed chances almost cost Leitrim but Moran preferred to highlight the fact that his team were creating chances: “We rely an awful lot on Ryan and Darragh, the boys have players who can keep those boys out, keep them to a point or 1-1 in Ryan’s case and that’s tough and then you need other fellas to stand up.

“Barry McNulty stood up, Tom Prior stood up, Jack Foley got a score and it was huge, Nevin came up and kicked his 45s. The icing on the cake for us was if Ben and Evan had kicked those scores, it would have been the icing on the cake for the subs to kick those scores. It didn’t happen - we’re very happy with some of our play, our shot percentage and shots into the keeper’s hands need to go up if we’re to have any chance in a couple of weeks.

“The thing for us is that we’re getting the fellas we want into the positions to shoot, only that we didn’t execute today. Listen I had plenty of those days myself and I’m sure Mickey Graham had plenty of those days - they are hard days when you are a forward but the thing for us is that we’re creating the chances and getting fellas in the right position to take the shots. Unfortunately they just missed them today.”

Moran also had special praise for Kieran Clancy who made his debut and did a man marking job on Longford’s Darren Gallagher: “Kieran Clancy - he did alright? Hopefully Donal Casey will be back in a couple of weeks, we know how important Donal is to your team. Clancy is a great character.

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“He is a fellow we took a wildcard on this year and we had an idea this week to put him on Darren Gallagher, Longford’s best player. I’d say a few people would have doubted that but we’ve seen him over the last few weeks, we saw him against Sligo when he came on and we have full faith in him.

“By God, he repaid the faith and was absolutely outstanding until, and when you haven’t that amount of games played, his calves go and Gallagher scores straight away. He did an outstanding job for us.”