Leitrim just have to stick at it and keep going says Lilywhite boss Flanagan

Leitrim are going through a rough patch at the moment but one unexpected source of encouragement came from new Kildare manager Brian Flanagan who urged the Green & Gold footballers to stick with the process despite the travails they are enduring right now.

“It's about getting two points and moving on,” Flanagan told the Observer after Sunday’s 1-27 to 0-7 Allianz NFL Division 3 victory in Ballinamore’s Pairc Sheain Ui Eslin, before offering some unexpected words of encouragement, “You can see what Leitrim are trying to do. They have a young squad, a young team. I think nobody is unaware as to what's going on there.

“The county, the county board, the management, the players, everyone just needs to be patient for a while - that's very obvious, but I think it's full credit to them, they're sticking to it.  It'll take a couple of years but they'll come again. A lot of fellas have gone off the squad and everything else.”

It is obvious that the Lilywhites manager was well briefed on his Leitrim opponents but he rugged Steven Poacher’s players to stick with the task: “There's plenty of good footballers in Leitrim. Apart from the lads that have left the squad from last year, obviously Barry McNulty being injured, Riordan O’Rourke injured.

“We were looking at the team last week and there were another two or three that had probably gone off it. They've been very, very unfortunate at the minute and it's something they just have to stick together and keep going with.“

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As for his own team’s performance, Flanagan was quietly satisfied: “From our point of view, it's job done. I thought we probably played our best stuff in the first half, we got a little bit of slack in the second and the pace went down with the game a good bit. You'll have days like today, we'll have tougher days, everything else but at the minute, the lads are doing everything we're asking them to do.”

Flanagan is also trying to build up some strength in depth so as to encourage internal competition within his squad: “From our end, we're trying to give as many lads game time and develop something that can see us through over the next couple of years. There's a lot of young fellas that have got their chance here today. It's a relatively new squad, still trying to find its feet and whatever else.

“Anyone that's coming in off the bench, you want them having an impact, not just playing through the motions in any way. I thought we got that today from a lot of lads that came in. Those that got the opportunity to start, in fairness, grasped it with two hands.

“That's what we want because we want that level of internal competition that becomes a huge driver for us, that you don't have the luxury of slacking off on a given day, regardless of the outcome or the result or the opposition or anything like that, we want lads constantly pushing each other and at the minute they're doing that.”