Superb Healy is once again Wicklow’s talisman and Leitrim’s bogeyman

There was no escaping Dean Healy last Saturday evening in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park, the Wicklow man powering the Garden County to a Tailteann Cup victory over Leitrim that was something of a familiar sight to anyone who has seen him in action against the Green & Gold over the years.

Healy, who starred in the crucial Allianz Division 4 game in Aughrim last year that scuppered Leitrim’s promotion hopes, landed four points and was instrumental in the build-up to both of Wicklow goals so the first question was does he particularly relish taking on the Green & Gold?

“It is not necessarily that I like playing against Leitrim,” the long serving Wicklow star told the Observer, “I know Donal Wrynn, I went to college with him, he is a great lad and I’ve followed Leitrim football over the years because we’ve always been tit for tat.

“Credit to Leitrim, we did a lot of work on them during the week, they’ve had a fantastic year in terms of getting promoted out of Division 4 and I have no doubt they will be competitive in Division 3 and Andy is the man to drive them on. 

“Fair play to them and I hope they do start progressing. You can see the young lads they brought on from that U20 team, I followed them throughout the year and it is all about retaining them, putting a bit of meat on them and hopefully they will be competitive in Division 3.

REPORT: WICKLOW POWER PAST LEITRIM IN SECOND HALF

Of course, Healy’s contribution to Wicklow’s win also came with a bit of a flashpoint as Oisin McConville’s talisman was lucky to avoid a second yellow card midway through the second half, Dean admitting he was “very relieved” not to see referee Kieran Eannetta reach for another card!

“Very relieved. In the first half, I won the free initially and it wasn’t anything. The second one, he jumped up into me and threw himself on the ground. It is one of those things - sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t and today, we were fortunate.”

No more than Leitrim, Wicklow have had an influx of young players under McConville and Healy reckons it is helping his game: “I’m speaking about your young boys, we introduced a couple of lads from the twenties last year and they brought great energy to the old boys last year. 

“I’m obviously at the tail end of my career and when you see young lads like that come in and really committed to the cause, it is really refreshing and, listen, it almost makes me feel younger to be honest with you. I suppose they’re doing my work!”

For Wicklow, victory last Sunday after a turbulent year was something to build on: “When we sat down a couple of weeks ago and talked about realistic goals, winning the Tailteann Cup, is that a realistic goal given the teams that are in it? But we did say we wanted a knockout game and we’d back ourselves in a knockout game and that came to fruition today.

“We just need a run of consistent games. We had a massive high after the Westmeath game and the performance against Kildare, it is a game that day I felt we should have won but it is just one of them things in terms of the three week break between the end of the provincial and the Tailteann Cup, it deflated us. 

“We were on a massive high and then you’re on a massive low, we went back to the clubs for a week and then you are trying to pick it up again. We weren’t anywhere near it against Fermanagh and Laois, we weren’t much better but with the panel that we have, when we get a run of games, we seem to up our performance.”

CHECK OUT WILLE DONNELLAN'S FAN GALLERY FROM LEITRIM V WICKLOW TAILTEANN CUP CLASH

As for the new inter-county calendar and a tough schedule of games, Dean feels some tweaks may help the Tailteann Cup in the long run: “It is a condensed year obviously and when you see third places coming out of groups, there is a big debate around that the Ulster Final having to go to penalties, is there room to allow replays for the likes of that? 

“We won’t be able to get much training done during the week, we’re going to get team that finished and their reward was being off this week so they have the reward of a week off and home advantage so even if they brought the quarter-final into a neutral venue, if they are going to persist with that format, it might be a little bit more of advantage to the teams that are coming through extra games.”