Fond memories of Leitrim for Stephen but Tribeswomen are the focus now!

Galway might not have played Leitrim in adult championship football in 15 years but there was one person in the Tribe camp who had a good idea of what to expect and that was former Kiltubrid manager Stephen Sheeran who is now a member of the All-Ireland Finalists backroom team.

Stephen led Kiltubrid to the Leitrim Senior B title in 2022 and all the way to a Connacht Intermediate Final where they lost out narrowly to Charlestown, an injury time point seeing the Mayo side triumph 1-10 to 0-12. So if there was one man who knew what Galway were facing last Saturday, it was Stephen.

“We came here to do a job,” Stephen told the Observer after Galway’s 2-22 to 0-5 victory, “and we knew Leitrim, having come up from Intermediate, were always going to be absolutely dying to play their first game here, in front a home crowd, there's loads of bodies here. So I think we were always going to be wanting to start off on the right foot.”

Stephen admitted it was strange facing so many of the players he had led with Kiltubrid: “It was kind of a funny one. I chatted to a couple of them there at the end and got a couple of hugs there. A really great group. So the fact that I knew that coming in was a little bit scary in a way as well. I'm well aware of the forwards Leitrim have and the ability they have.”

Playing in Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada also brought home some happy memories as Kiltubrid beat Ballinamore  in the Senior B Final three years ago at the same venue: “Somebody asked me during the week did we get to play many games here with Kiltubrid but I very much remember that one. That was a nice day.”

The Galway backroom member agreed that Galway were surprised to learn his former Kiltubrid star Michelle Guckian lining out in goal and the fact that Leitrim played Mayo first was in their favour: “We were probably lucky that Mayo played them last week and we were able to get someone to see that and kind of read the match reports. She brings a whole different dynamic, she is kind of doing the Ethan Rafferty job on it.”

For Galway, the aim was simply to get back to the Connacht Final as they seek to defend their title and they will take things from there: “There's always the thing where at the end of a Connacht Championship - you want to come away and you want to win it. So I suppose that's the first thing we kind of had always said ‘let's try and win the league’, ‘let's go after the Connacht Championship’ and let's see where that leaves us. So the aim was to get through today, get everyone healthy, get to a Connacht Final and ideally try and win that and move on.”

With the two counties due to meet next Sunday in the final round robin game and again in the final, it makes for a strange dynamic: “It's going to be a funny one. After today's results we'll all be in the same boat. Can we just get it done? We'll see what they do. I presume they'll play it. Integrity of the competition and all that.”

Stephen was also thrilled with the intensity Galway showed throughout the game, highlighting the competition for places: “I suppose that's the benefit of having a big panel where the girls who are there know that they've got to work hard to keep the jersey for next week. That's nice and we've always tried to pride ourselves on our work rate and work as hard as possible and they did that today I think in fairness.”