THE LAST POINT: Conductor sets the tune for the orchestra

It’s being rough year for Leitrim fans of a certain vintage with the passing of two legendary figures in this history of the Green & Gold, the legacy left by the late John O’Mahony and PJ Carroll still being felt to this very day, a legacy that is, in all likelihood, may never be repeated.

The loss of PJ & Johnno got me thinking of just how lucky I was to witness what the Green & Gold achieved between 1990 and 1994, a transformation that defies belief to this very day as a team languishing in Division 3 North were suddenly a team to be reckoned with and one that ended up lifting the Nestor Cup 26 years ago last July.

Willie Donnellan would often tell me on the long journeys to and from the various adventures Leitrim got up to during those wild, glorious years that there were people in our fair county who had never known what it was like to say the words - Leitrim Connacht Champions.

The legendary Tom Gannon, captain of the 1927 winning team, was still hale and hearty, I remember writing a story about Tom getting free insurance as he was still driving his car in his early 90s and my interview with him in the lead-up to the Connacht Final ranks right up there with my chat with Packie McGarty as one of the most memorable of my career.

My previous job was in Kerry and when I told  my colleagues that I was departing to join the Leitrim Observer, he quipped “You’ll never get to Croke Park with that crowd” to which, smart-ass that I am, I replied “The way Kerry are playing right now, I have a better chance in Leitrim!”

THE LAST POINT: A contrast in emotions in 24 hours

To say Leitrim playing in Croke Park was unthinkable doesn’t quite do it justice - teams almost took it as an affront if Leitrim beat them while the most revered team in the county’s history was not the 1927 heroes but rather the team of the 50s and 60s who reached four consecutive Connacht Finals only to lose them all.

An almost tragic aura hung over Leitrim football - there were the odd moments that eclipsed the gloom, Leitrim beating Mayo in a replay in 1976 was one, followed the next year by a Connacht U21 title while the Green & Gold famously took Galway to the wire in 1983, the Tribesmen going on to lose the infamous '12 Apostles' Final  (Dubs bias showing here!) But mostly, the tale was one of woe but that  all changed in the space of 12 months when PJ Carroll took on what many regarded as a poisoned chalice and then John O’Mahony kicked down the gates to glory four years later.

So what changed? It is easy to point to the arrival of Carroll and later O’Mahony but the answer is somewhat more complex than that. I’m involved in coaching myself and there is a popular saying among coaches that ‘you can’t put in what God left out’ and that is certainly true of Gaelic football, that you've got to have the ability to go with the self-belief..

Mickey Quinn had been around a long time by the time he won his first All-Star in 1990, one Leitrim fan telling me in recent weeks that he was far better in 1983 than he was seven years later but the National press witnessed his feats against Kildare and Roscommon that year and a well deserved All-Star came to  Leitrim.

Mickey Martin, reckoned by Willie Donnellan and County Board Chairman Enda Stenson as the best Leitrim footballer they’ve ever seen, represented Ireland, was a replacement All-Star but he didn’t have a strong enough team around him - Leitrim able to produce gems but never in sufficient quantity to trouble the big boys.

But things were changing - Leitrim won the Fr Manning Cup in 1987 and 1990, reached the U21 Finals in 1990 and 1991 and a Connacht Minor Final in 1991 so obviously something was stirring in the underage ranks in the county as players were starting to come into the scene who could perform on the highest level.

Leitrim Clubs were incredibly competitive too - Ballinamore Sean O’Heslins reached Connacht Club finals in 1986 and 1990 but they had to fight like demons to escape the county, the standard so competitive that Aughawillan (1992 & 1994), St Mary’s Kiltoghert (1994) and Allen Gaels (1997) all reached the provincial decider and nobody thought that it was anything other than what you’d expect.

I’m a great believer that great players make great teams - Mick O’Dwyer and Jim Gavin are the two most successful managers in the history of Gaelic football, Brian Cody the GOAT in hurling but would  that trio have achieved what they did without the incredible players at their disposal, some of who are quite rightly ranked with the greatest ever to play the game?

I firmly believe the same goes for Leitrim in that era - the county was blessed by an incredible crop of great players who came along at just the right time, a time when Galway were yet to awaken from a long slumber and two great teams in Roscommon and Mayo were on the downward spiral.

I’m not downgrading what Leitrim achieved in those years, far from it and many a supposedly more talented Green & Gold outfit failed to achieve what the heroes of 94 did but it was a sort of cosmic coming together of circumstances that propelled the county with the smallest population in the country to provincial glory.

If anything, what Leitrim achieved actually pushed Galway and Mayo to new heights - the idea of being beaten by little Leitrim so offended them that they were transformed in the years that followed, Mayo contesting back to back finals in 1996 and 1997, Galway going two better by lifting Sam in 1998 and 2001.

Yet I’m prepared to make an exception from my belief that great players make great teams  when it comes to PJ and Johnno as I firmly believe that without those two men, Leitrim would never have got anywhere near where they did in those years - Carroll brought a manic intensity to the role that lifted Leitrim up off the floor and got them to dream as the image of the county was given a radical makeover and nothing was ever the same again as Leitrim fans now dreamt of titles and promotion and going toe to toe with the big guys.

Leitrim went from losing to New York in a tournament in Antrim early in Carroll's reign to welcoming the Dubs to Carrick for high profile friendlies as the image of the county was given a radical makeover and nothing was ever the same again.

What O’Mahony did when he was the conductor of the Leitrim orchestra was to transform the tune from Carroll’s rock n’ roll to that of a symphony orchestra, where the performance was that bit more polished, refined to the point of purity and where the sole and utter focus was performing at your best on the day.

THE LAST POINT: Separating the apples and the oranges

On the face of it, Carroll and O'Mahony were polar opposites but O’Dwyer, Gavin and Cody were all very different types of conductors - O’Dwyer brought a missionary’s zeal to his Kerry team, flogging them on the training field so they’d reach new heights. Cody transformed hurling into a war zone, where warriors fought as if their lives depended on it and, on those Kilkenny teams, it did.

Gavin was probably the most complex - somewhat remote from his players but instilling in them a fierce respect for their  county's traditions and an unshakeable conviction in their approach that ended up producing absolutely glorious football that rivals the best we’ve ever seen.

Oftentimes, we take it for granted when a team wins an All-Ireland, not quite realising what it takes to get across the line - Kieran McGeeney’s ten year sojourn in Armagh finally landed Sam this year but anybody who has witnessed the Orchard County in action over the past ten years always knew the talent was there, it was just getting them to deliver a tune that was the hardest task.

Steven Poacher is now the man with the conductor's baton tasked with getting a tune out of the Leitrim orchestra in 2025. It is not easy with so many challenges facing the Green & Gold but if the Down native can deliver a tune, I'm pretty sure all Leitrim people will be singing next year.