Wall delighted with the result but not Leitrim's performance

Leitrim picked up a vital win but manager Mike Wall was far from happy with the performance of the county hurlers in defeating Monaghan in Saturday’s Allianz NHL Division 3 tie in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park.

Asked  for his reaction to the 1-18 to 0-16 victory, Mike said “Delighted with the result but with the overall performance? No! The first half we were sloppy, I thought our discipline was poor. We conceded something like 13 frees in the first half. Second half, they showed unbelievable heart.

“They were the very same above in Louth last weekend. We gave them a bit of a tongue lashing at halftime - we're trying to hold them to a high standard and they're trying to hold themselves to a high standard. The last 20-25 minutes is what we showed that we can do and I thought they were fantastic. But again, we're not the finished product yet or anything like it but we're just going to have to make sure that we improve in the first 30-45 minutes.”

Leitrim have lost quite a few experienced players over the past three years but Mike is more than happy with his young players: “We have what we have and we're delighted. We have a really strong panel of 30 and our numbers at training are brilliant. What these boys are doing for hurling in Leitrim is absolutely super because they are bringing it to a higher level. 

“These boys are after putting on a serious amount of conditioning in the last few weeks. It's a lot to do with our strength and conditioning coach to be fair but they are holding themselves to a high standard. We have a lot of U20s there. Our two subs, Dhani Keane and Dylan McDermott, were fantastic. Mark McHugh is an U20, Pearse Kenny and Tommy Taylor and we have other U20s on the bench. We're a very, very young team. We're growing, we're growing.”

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Mike was happy with the fact that Leitrim haven’t conceded a goal in their last two games: “That's the second game in a row we haven't conceded a goal and I think we only conceded five or six points from play. Our discipline wasn't good last week and it wasn't good today either. That's something we need to work on but we're not conceding huge scores from play.

“That was the biggest amount of scores that was scored on us in the league yet. We hit 1-18, we've been scoring high. We got 21 points the first day, 17 here against Longford and 1-18 here today. If we keep the score down to 16 scores, we give ourselves a good chance of winning most games.”

Fermanagh are next up in the League in a promotion clash but Mike reveals his  main target is the Lory Meagher Cup: “We have nothing won yet. We still need to go to Fermanagh and get a result next week. We still need to do the job against Fermanagh next week and it all depends how they go against Warwickshire tomorrow. 

“We're building for the Lorry Meagher Cup and the only pressure that's on us is the pressure we're putting on ourselves because outside of our own group, no one else minds. Of the other teams, they're not watching us, I'm sure they're all watching themselves. All we're looking to do is just keep improving every week. We know if we can improve every week, we give ourselves a good chance.”