Garrity & Leitrim more determined than ever to escape Lidl LGFA Division 4

If the start of the year is beginning to resemble Groundhog day for Leitrim’s Ladies Senior team, it is not so surprising when you consider their heartbreak in two Lidl LGFA NFL Division 4 finals and three semi-finals over the last five campaigns and you understand their desperation to climb out of the basement tier.

It is not as if residing in Division 4 has done their championship hopes any harm with at least three Connacht Intermediate titles and one All-Ireland crown but when you chat with manager Jonny Garrity, you understand that escaping Division 4 is a long held, if frustrated ambition, of this group!

“It always seems like we fall at the final hurdle,” reflects Jonny, adding “Even when promotion was just the winning team, we were beaten in the final. When promotion was the two finalists, we were beaten in the semi-final twice so we're not going to hide away from the fact that we've fallen short in trying to achieve promotion.

“But at the same time, just because we want promotion, it doesn't mean that we deserve it, it doesn't mean that it's guaranteed for us. There's another seven teams there that want promotion equally as much as we do so it's a matter of going out and earning it and winning the games that we have to.

“Firstly, it is about getting the points on the board to get into that semi-final and then taking it from there. That's the challenge in front of us, it's no different than last time but we're ever more determined to make it count this year.”

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Playing Division 4 football didn’t hurt them at Intermediate level in recent years but the gap between the pace of Division 1 teams in the Senior Championship and what Leitrim were used to operating at in Division 4 was readily apparent during the Green & Gold’s first foray into Senior Championship football in almost two decades last Summer.

“It was even more apparent when we were playing Championship at the top tier that Division 4 certainly didn't help us. But, at the same time, we would never use that as an excuse - we are in Division 4 because we haven't managed to get out of it.

“We're certainly not pointing the finger at anybody there and again that's a familiar challenge that we'll have in front of us now this year.”

Competing in the TG4 Senior Championship was both eye-opening and chastening at the same time as Garrity’s troops had the misfortune to come up against three superpowers in eventual All-Ireland Champions Dublin, Semi-Finalists Galway and an impressive Waterford. Even in their other games, they came up against two fallen giants in Mayo and Galway.

And while he has never made excuses, Jonny points to various circumstances in the scheduling of games that didn’t help Leitrim: “I think there was mitigating circumstances around, in particular, the Galway and Dublin fixtures last year - we had the re-fixture of the Dublin game the next day, and we had Galway six days on from our senior debut against Mayo.

“You could look at that but, at the same time, there was an undoubted step up in quality when you got to the top table and it was fantastic to be there, fantastic to experience that and to give the girls a taste of that. 

“We felt that we were competitive in all the other matches - maybe games got away from us that we should have actually won and that would have kept us up and that would have been a fantastic achievement. But look, at the same time there's lots to learn from it and we intend to put that learning now to the test this year back in intermediate again.”

The Leitrim squad pictured at training in Cloone ahead of the start of the Lidl LGFA NFL Division 4 campaign next Sunday against Longford in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park Picture: Willie Donnellan

The experience was tough at times but Garrity is determined that Leitrim take valuable insights from the experience of competing in the Senior grade! “It's our job as a management to ensure that we do take the learnings from that and the leaders amongst the group here, they were so keen to learn and to take the lessons from playing those teams and facing off against those players. 

“It was brilliant in many ways because we had to learn really quickly that any mistake was punished really, really ruthlessly and the speed that we had to move the ball at, that was a process of learning throughout the year and probably the way we ended up, we were moving the ball really quickly in comparison to how we started the year.

“There was a progression there but, at the end of the day, it wasn't enough to stay up but it's certainly enough to help the girls improve as players and, as I say, we want to take that learning now and apply it in everything that we do going forward.”

On a personal level, it would have been easy for Jonny to step away from the Leitrim job once the championship was completed, the feeling that a cycle had come to a natural end while the Tyrone native would certainly have been in high demand in a few high profile counties.

But Garrity’s bond with his players and the Leitrim LGFA County Board meant that was never an option, although he admits that there were other considerations to take into account: “In some respects, yes, it would have been a natural time to step away because I have a young family and leaving them in the evening time isn't easy sometimes.

“Sometimes, you want to stay somewhere maybe closer to home and whatnot and there's challenges out there that are also exciting but I think that the esteem in which myself and the management team hold this county board in and hold these players in has given us a real loyalty to the group.”

More importantly, Jonny feels that Leitrim still have plenty to achieve: “We don't feel as though we're finished yet; the journey doesn't feel as though it's reached its conclusion - there's been absolutely amazing highs as we all know and  there's been a few lows but we want to go and add to that story.

“We want to take them on in the league and get that promotion; we want to see where we can go in the intermediate championship again and if we can rescale those heights and  all of those challenges are ones that motivate me and excite me and I'm so happy here.

“I'm having the time of my life down here in a football sense so the timing certainly isn't right to go away just yet as long as they're happy with me obviously and I'm very happy.”

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Back to the looming League campaign, Jonny is taking nothing for granted with some news faces in and some gone but it is the challenge of getting out of Division 4 that excites the manager: “There's always a turnover in players, even if you  don't want there to be - sometimes there there's an automatic natural turnover in players year on year.

“We've a few players gone and we've got a fair few players in now who haven't been involved before and there's some really exciting players so yeah we're very enthused about the new faces that we've got and we can't wait to unleash them.”

Longford are first up and after a draw in Kiltubrid last year, Jonny is taken nothing for granted, even if they lost their manager just before Christmas when Brian Farrell stood down: “It'll be equally hard - you would take absolutely nothing for granted and the bit of turmoil that's going on within the county may actually galvanize the players, we don't know. 

“We certainly aren't going to take any chances in terms of our approach, our mentality towards the game - we're going to treat it with all the respect that it deserves. This is a team that last year we played quite well against them for most of the game but we didn't really make a count on the scoreboard.

“They come back and  finish strongly to get a draw against us so we know how tricky they are. We know that they're going to stick with you and if you don't put them away they're going to punish you so that's the challenge that's in front of us and again it's one that we relish.”