THE LAST POINT: Boring consistency the key to progress

Hard to find anything more boring than consistency when it comes to sport. Consistency doesn't spark the imagination or have kids out in the street trying spectacular tricks they've witnessed but consistency is the bedrock of any sportsperson, be they competing at the European Athletics championship as an individual or lining out with Leitrim in the Tailteann Cup.

Ciara Mageean demonstrated just that on Sunday evening when she finally plundered the gold medal a spectacular underage career seemed to promise many moons ago. After winning medals at European, World and Commonwealth level as a Junior (U20 & U18), the Down woman struggled with injury and form to translate an obvious talent into success at senior level, a European  bronze in 2016 a scant return for someone feted to be a star.

But since 2020, Mageean has brought an extraordinary consistency to her performances. A new training set-up, where she is pushed to a higher standard, has seen her go from an athlete who was regarded as maybe an outside shot at a medal to one that the world's best athletes now have to watch and watch closely.

Consistency has been the key to Mageean's late career surge - at the age of 32, you'd have thought her best days were behind her but an uninterrupted period of training, building on session after session, performance after performance saw her join Sonia O'Sullivan as Ireland's only individual European Athletics gold medallist on Sunday.

That's the point Andy Moran is making about when he talks about consistency from the  Leitrim Senior footballers, a  rock on which Leitrim teams have consistently been dashed upon over  the years - an unwanted consistency ironically - but the Green & Gold are now embracing the  slow laborious process of building good performance on top of good performance and gradually getting to where they want to go.

THE LAST POINT: EXPERIENCING THE FULL IRISH OF EMOTIONS

Moran and his captain Mark Diffley bemoaned the lack of consistency last Saturday as Leitrim failed to find the same kind of spark against Wicklow that they showed against Kildare  but if you look back over this year, this hasn't been a new phenomenon for the Green & Gold - big performances against Wexford and Laois in the League both coming after a week's break in the League but  followed up by, in the case of the win over Wexford, losses in consecutive weeks against Carlow & Longford.

For Leitrim, there was a slight spike as  a win over a rudderless Tipperary came a week after the famous Portlaoise victory but then came the misfire in Croke Park in the Division 4 Final and the complication of the U20 campaign depriving Leitrim of Barry McNulty and Jack Foley added to the woes for the loss against Sligo. So right there, you can see consistency is the biggest problem facing Andy Moran's side in 2024 - solve that issue and you wonder what Leitrim might achieve.

Closing that gap between the exhilaration of O'Moore Park and putting Kildare to the pin of their collars in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park and the last quarter collapses in Croke Park and against Wicklow and you'll go a long way to producing the sort of reliable eight out of ten performance week in, week out that is needed to progress.

Does increased consistency come with consistent training over the years lifting the physical levels or being exposed to a higher level of football, at club and county level? Probably a bit of both but in the games where Leitrim have fallen down, the final quarter has consistently been a problem. 

Consistency is something that is apparent every time I witness Dean Healy delivering a tour de force against Leitrim - not the biggest midfielder Leitrim have come up against and maybe not the fastest, there hasn't been a player who has done such consistent damage to the Green & Gold over the years and Saturday was no exception.

Healy was a monster in Pearse Park, his barnstorming runs cut through the centre of the Leitrim defence, an almost old-fashioned throw-back to the days when matches were decided by the force of will of one or two key players and while others like Malachy Stone, Padraig O'Toole, Jack Kirwan, Mark Jackson, Eoin Murtagh and Kevin Quinn performed key roles in ousting Leitrim from the championship, nobody came near the influence of Healy.

An abrasive and physical player, Healy was lucky to finish the game with referee Kevin Eannetta opting for a stern chat rather than what looked like a nailed on second yellow card on 54 minutes - everyone in the press box, including the Wicklow representative, thought Healy was headed to the sideline but it was one of those sliding doors moment that might have given Leitrim the jolt they needed to push for victory in the final quarter.

THE LAST POINT: LEITRIM ENJOY THEIR DAY IN THE SUN

Eannetta's decision was one of those that when it goes for you, you say 'fair play, ref, sensible officiating there' just as everyone with Leitrim in their hearts felt when Mark Diffley benefitted from similar leniency back in February when referee Mark Dorrian didn't dole out a second yellow against Wexford, a game that Leitrim went on to win with a controversial late penalty.

Last Saturday, the decision went the other way and it was crucial because Healy, who obviously keeps a close eye on Leitrim football  if we are to judge his chat with the Observer after the game, continued to wage a one-man war against the Green & Gold, even making a huge block in added time that led to Wicklow's final score of the contest.

One wonders if Leitrim ever will have a player of Healy's consistent class but I think we already have in the form of Barry McNulty - it is almost inconceivable that the Glencar Manorhamilton man has become such a key figure for Leitrim given he is still U20 this year but he has, the youngster producing the sort of performances we've come to expect of much older and more seasoned players.

Wicklow recognised that last Sunday and after McNulty waltzed his way across the pitch to boom a 40 yard shot across the bar three minutes into the second half, Oisin McConville took action - Jonathan Carlin was sent on and his one and sole duty was to stay close to McNulty and stop him having an influence on the game and it worked. Andy Moran tried to shift his talisman around the field but when he was at full-forward, he came into the orbit of the equally impressive Malachy Stone as McConville understood just what damage the youngster could do to his team.

In fairness, Andy Moran tried to negate what Dean Healy was doing  but what Healy, now 32 and back after a short retirement last year, has experience and physical power honed by years and years of consistent training  - Barry McNulty doesn't have that just yet but he will and if he develops into a player to match the Wicklow talisman, Leitrim will have a gem on their hands.

That takes time and that is a point worth making when you see the picture at the top of this page - eight players made their debuts for the Senior team this year and that is quite extraordinary. Keeping and developing those players will take time and patience  and that is maybe what we saw in the final 20 minutes as Leitrim failed to score - the absence of years and years of consistent and repetitive work in the gym and training field.

THE LAST POINT: REWARD FOR KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE

Leitrim aren't there right now, that much is obvious in the wild vacillation in performances this year but there is also no doubt that the Green & Gold are producing better displays. In previous years, we got 20 minutes of power packed performances, now we're at 40 - 50 minutes - the final 20 minutes is the hardest to get but we're heading in the right direction.

Consistency is the key - it's boring and time consuming but as Ciara Mageean demonstrated last Sunday evening in Rome, patience and commitment to the cause can deliver results, it is just that it takes time!