No excuses from Garrity but Saturday postponement didn't help Leitrim's cause against Dublin
TG4 LGFA All-Ireland SFC: Saturday's postponement didn't help but Leitrim manager says it doesn't explain heavy defeat against
Manager Jonny Garrity was not looking for excuses after Leitrim’s 8-18 to 0-7 loss to Dublin in the TG4 LGFA All-Ireland SFC last Sunday but he did concede that the postponement of Saturday’s original fixture had not helped his team’s cause.
“There's several factors that have probably conspired against us, and made a really daunting challenge all the more difficult and that's another one of them,” Garrity told the Observer, “The girls have had quite a substantial journey in their legs from when they got out of bed yesterday morning.”
The difficulties faced by the Green & Gold included long discussions on when the refixed game would take place and the toll of two long days were evident in Leitrim's performance: “A really, really long day on Saturday where we never got out of Dublin due to trying to negotiate when the refixed game would be and by the time we got on the road and got home again last night, it was the night time and then they had to turn around and repeat the journey again today.
“That's difficult at the best of times to go out and be at your best then against arguably one of the best teams in Ireland. It certainly didn't help but again I don't think that can explain such a heavy defeat and we certainly won't be looking for excuses. We have got the ability to control what we do.”
Speaking on Saturday after the game in Parnell Park was postponed with torrential rain in Dublin and along the east coast, the Leitrim manager highlighted the situation even then: “It's not ideal and making the journey down twice in two days isn't ideal but to be fair to the Dublin County Board, the Dublin management and the LGFA, everybody was trying their best to come in with a solution-based approach.
“There was never going to be a perfect answer because, obviously, had the match been in the spare weekend, that would have ensured that we were the only team in Ireland playing three games in three weeks and potentially four. So that was an eventuality that we were keen to avoid, to be honest, whether we were on a relegation pathway or a quarter-final.”
It means that Leitrim will have to travel up to Dublin twice in the one weekend, a situation that their manager admits is not ideal: “Playing tomorrow after coming down today and not getting the match and travelling again, that's not ideal either. We have to regroup now as a squad and double-check with availability and all the logistics that go around that.”
While fully understanding that the weather played havoc with a lot of games, Jonny would have liked earlier notice that the game was off: “Earlier notice would have been really, really useful because even with earlier notice, we might not have had to make the full journey.”