Leitrim will give League a good rattle over the next few weeks - Poacher

Steven Poacher may have described himself as being devastated by last Sunday’s 1-17 to 2-13 defeat at the hands of Wicklow but the Leitrim manager believes his charges are ready to make a real go of this year’s Allianz NFL Division 4 campaign.

Speaking to the Observer after the narrow defeat, Steven said “We were dealt some adversity there today, I'm absolutely devastated for the lads, devastated. Did they score from play? I don't know. I don't even know if they scored from play, they got maybe two or three?

“But the positives here today are tenfold - men making their debuts all over the place, Gavin Reynolds back on the field, absolutely phenomenal to come in there today. Ben Guckian playing his first full game this year, worked his socks off, probably tired towards the end. 

“Ryan O'Rourke got through his first full game there in about two or three years. The three of O'Rourke standing over there beside me, three wonderful lads but they're all a good bunch of lads and Michael McKernan has come in today.

“Division Four is a tough, tough division, it is a hard, hard league. Obviously, you like to get off to a winning start but there's a lot of positives coming out of this - Wicklow and Antrim are red-hot favourites to get out of this division but we'll give it a good rattle over the next few weeks.”

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For the Leitrim manager, the quality of their display was no surprise: “It's no surprise because I know what's here. I know the work that we've put in - we've done serious amounts of coaching with these lads. We got our hands on them early this year and got a lot of coaching done. We had a good pre-season. 

“Daniel St Ledger and Anthony, two wonderful coaches, I can't speak highly enough of them, two brilliant fellas. The dynamic that we have in our management team is top class. We have a really tight-knit management team. The players, there's a great relationship among the players. There's a great buzz about them, they're a good bunch of young men and look, onwards and upwards from here.

“All the talk is about Antrim and Wicklow but we came down here today and maybe give people something to think about and food for thought.”

Part of the reason for Stephen’s optimism is the belief that injured players will be back on the field soon, although the news that Paul Keaney has suffered a serious injury is a blow: “We can't catch a break - Paul Keaney came into the panel this year,  great fella from St Mary's. Paul's attitude since he came in has been absolutely phenomenal. He's a big man, two-point scorer, a   serious weapon for us. 

“Just a little innocuous thing in training where he rolled the ankle and he's probably gone for the year.  I'm just going, give us a bit of a break. With 11 men out injured today, nine or ten of them would probably start. Great to see Cillian McGloin & Barry McNulty sprinting before the game but they're still a bit away. If we can get everybody back on the field, I'll tell you, we'll not be far away.”

For all that, Steven is not taking next Sunday’s opponents, Waterford, lightly: “Waterford are coming in under the radar as they didn't play this week and nobody has had a look at them, so we don't know what they have. That's going to be a massive, massive, massive game for us next week.”