Job one done for Ladies manager Jonny Garrity as Leitrim set sights on League Semi-Finals

You got the feeling from Jonny Garrity last Sunday in the warmth of a slowly descending sun in Echelon Aughrim Park that he expects Leitrim’s journey is only beginning after the Green & Gold Ladies overwhelmed Wicklow to storm into the Lidl Division 4 Semi-Finals.

Leitrim’s 3-13 to 0-9 victory was every bit as comprehensive as the scoreline suggests but Jonny’s first words after chatting with his players after the game betrayed his ambitions to go much further: “Delighted to get over the line on the day and now we have a semi-final to look forward to.”

For the Leitrim manager, qualifying for the semi-finals was the main priority, going further in the competition is the next priority: “As you said, job one done. We want to bridge the gap up to the championship, we’ve done that now with the semi-final - we’d like to bridge that further and that’s the plan.

Impressive Leitrim cruise into League Semi-Finals

WICKLOW 0-9 LEITRIM 3-13

“The re-emergence of Limerick has probably made our group harder than it looks on paper, they’re a great team. Obviously Wicklow, the team that came down from last year and being an intermediate team, were the favourites so to come out of that group is an achievement in itself, we’re delighted to top the group more so.”

It means a meeting with Jonny’s native county Fermanagh in the semi-final but the Leitrim is all business about the prospect replying “it won’t be” when asked about conflicting emotions before adding “It is another match, it is a semi-final and we’re absolutely thrilled to be there and we’re looking forward to it.”

What has been noticeable about Leitrim’s play this year has been less of a reliance on the inspirational Michelle Guckian to provide scores and although Jonny said there wasn’t a conscious decision to lessen the burden on his captain, he prefers that his teams share responsibility so as to pose a greater threat to the opposition.

“Number one it is a team game and having somebody with the ability of Michelle is obviously a fantastic boost for us,” said Jonny, “But you cannot depend on one player and it is a matter of sharing out that responsibility. We’re in the really privileged position of having numerous fantastic players who can contribute and what we’re doing is letting them play and it is certainly working for us at the moment.”

Asked if it was something he set out to achieve, Jonny said “Not really, it is a matter of trying to implement our tactical game plan and our game plan doesn’t account for dependency on any one player so I suppose in that, it is a conscious decision in that we want big performances all over the field and that is what we’re getting.”

Check out the Leitrim fans cheering on the Green & Gold in Aughrim - GALLERY

It was a mixed day for Leitrim fans in Echelon Aughrim Park on Sunday as the Ladies team booked their place in the Lidl LGFA NFL Division 4 Semi-Finals while the Men's team saw their Allianz NFL Division 4 promotion hopes suffer a massive blow in a 0-15 to 1-9 loss. Observer photographer Willie Donnellan was a busy man with his camera at both games, snapping shots of fans enjoying a rare Leitrim double header ..... see who you can spot!

The only points Leitrim dropped so far in this campaign was in the draw to Limerick and Jonny admits it may have been a blessing in disguise: “100%, there were a lot of learnings to take from that game and we certainly did. We had two fantastic weeks of training where there were plenty of team meetings, plenty of tactical work and the hope and expectation from the management was that we would rectify the things we needed to and that was in evidence today.”

From Sunday’s game against Wicklow, the concession of frees is something the Leitrim manager will be looking into: “A large proportion of their scores were from free kicks so we were disciplined from play, we had a nice shape to us and a good intensity to us. We might need to look at the amount of free kicks that we conceded, scoreable freekicks.

“I thought the referee was quite stringent today and you have to adjust to that. Don’t get me wrong, he was a good referee and refereed it very well but I think in other matches, we wouldn’t have coughed up the same amount of scoreable free kicks. Defensively we were very well structured and disciplined and delighted with that. It leaves us in a good place to push on.”