No promises but Moran wants Leitrim to push to the next level

The benefits of years of consistent work in the gym is beginning to be seen in Leitrim’s performances on the field says manager Andy Moran who believes Leitrim are ready to step up to the next level after their performance against Kildare in last Saturday’s Tailteann Cup clash in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park.

The Leitrim manager was clearly enthused with his team’s display despite the 1-16 to 0-12 loss at the hands of the Lilywhites as he remarked to the press: “We were cracking lads, I won’t lie, we were cracking. We were within three points with about five minutes to go, young fellas coming in off the bench.”

The reason for his enthusiasm was clear, Leitrim going toe to toe with a team they will face next year in Division 3 of the Allianz League: “We were talking shite for a long time, saying I think we can do what we can do for a long time and no matter how next week goes, no matter how the rest of the Tailteann Cup goes, we’re going into Division 3 next year and the boys have shown and proved to themselves what they can do.

“Kildare have massive resources, way more than us, they’ve been doing it for maybe five years and you see the size of some of them and you see our little fellas at 70, 72 kilos crashing into them and if that doesn’t give us heart! Is this going to perfect? No it isn’t - next week the consistency mightn’t be there, we’ll see.

“We’ll try our best and you could hear the Leitrim supporters out there, they were going mad. If those players never did another thing, they gave the Leitrim supporters a lot of joy there today and showed them what they can really do and push into the future.”

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What the performances in the Tailteann Cup will do, Moran believes, is inspire Leitrim’s players to get back into the gym now that they can see progress being made: “What that leads into the boys, whenever the Tailteann Cup is over, taking two weeks off and then going straight back into the gym.

“You can imagine and we’re always on about strength and conditioning and what it is. Now they can see it, Guckian can see that maybe I need to put on a few kilos, young Cox, Arik. The result is the result but the application and the effort, I think it was typified by the last score from Ryan, we didn’t panic, held the ball, even though we were six or seven down, we held the ball, kept a really strong structure to the game and we kicked an outstanding point to finish.”

Another aspect that please the Leitrim manager was the way the young players have taken centre stage despite the absence of starting midfield duo Pearce Dolan and Jack Gilheaney: “Obviously no Gilheaney who has arguably our player of the league, no Pearce, obviously we’re not going to get Donal Casey back for the rest of the Tailteann. 

“We hope to have the two boys back next week but for those boys to put in that performance, I thought they were outstanding. You have the likes of McNulty taking over, you have Prior taking leadership, Radek has really came into his own, Foley is just a machine - I think the boys are putting out numbers in terms of GPS that they never put out before and when they put in an effort, I feel they can be an outstanding team.”

One aspect of the performance that really pleased the manager was both corner-backs scoring great points from opposite corners, although Moran joked that too much praise might encourage captain and full-back Mark Diffley to get involved: “Don’t be writing too much of that stuff because Diffley won’t stop shooting the next day! 

“It was great and Donal Wrynn, who played full-back today, had a shot but it just shows the confidence of the guys in where they’re going and where they want to get to. McNulty, Ryan O’Rourke, Darragh Rooney showed real leadership and fight - to be honest lads, if we get that every day, we got it down in Portlaoise, we got in Tipperary a few years ago, we got it against Longford a few days ago.

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“I just think this team has got to a level and now can we push on to the next level. That might not happen next week, I’m not making any promises but into the future of Leitrim football, this is huge. We finished the game with five U20s playing today and I don’t think any of them looked out of place so the football is coming.”

The idea of reaching Croke Park for the second time this year is a driving force for Leitrim with the Tailteann Cup semi-finals due to be held at GAA headquarters with Wicklow now standing in the way: “That’s a huge target - at the outset, I’ve said I think one Division 4 team from 2024 will get there. If we keep fighting and playing and running the way we ran there, I think we have a huge chance.

“Wicklow, that was probably the game that cost us last year in winning promotion so there are huge games there. But there is an awful lot of work there. Oisin McConville’s Wicklow played in Division 3 this year, you can see the differences, just there in that last five, ten minutes, Kildare brought on subs that made a huge difference, we just didn’t have the energy and Wicklow should have probably beaten Kildare so that’s a huge task.”