Just a little bit of history repeating

Shirley Bassey and English electronic music duo Propellerheads might seem like a strange starting point for a column about Leitrim Men's last game of 2024 but when I tell you that they combined for a song imaginatively entitled “Just a little bit of history repeating”, you get the drift pretty quickly of where I'm going in this week's musings.

Maybe I'm showing my age because the song was a hit a quarter of a century ago but the notion that Sunday's 1-16 to 1-12 Tailteann Cup loss at the hands of Wexford is, to borrow the song's title, a little bit of history repeating is hard to ignore - and since I've already used the headline “Deja vu all over again” on the main report on page 60, I had to try and come up with something so step forward Ms Bassey and the Propellerheads (don't worry very few have heard of them to be honest!).

If ever a match summed up a campaign, Sunday's outing in the blistering heat in Parnell Park could do it all - it had all the ingredients we've come to expect this year of the Green & Gold with numerous  missed goal chances (one from the penalty spot into the bargain) taking the gloss off a fully committed and wholehearted display from those men wearing the county colours.

Leitrim are on the cusp of a breakthrough says manager Jonny Garrity after Kildare loss

In fact, the game was spookily similar to what transpired in Chadwick's Wexford Park earlier this year in the League, with a missed goal chance in the second half in both games, the same winning margin and virtually the exact same scoreline (0-19 to 0-15 in the League to Sunday's 1-16 to 1-12).

Even Wexford's match winning surge in the final ten minutes was the same as the Model county galloped through a tiring Leitrim defence to surge for home, an almost exact replica of what happened in the sunny south east last February - even the sun and wind was the same, although it was much, much warmer and the wind not quite as strong.

Strong, physical players making powerful runs through the centre caused us no end of problems in our last five games - Liam Coleman, Niall Hughes, Glen Malone  and Padraic Hughes did the damage the way Ryan Jones, Ryan Lyons, Lee & Che Cullen did for Fermanagh, the same way Patrick McBride, Patrick Finnegan, Adam Loughran and Marc Jordan did for Antrim and the same way Johnny Glynn, Shane Carthy and the Brosnan brothers did for New York.

Lots of teams struggle against that - Mayo have virtually made it their trademark over the years and in today's possession based football, big units moving hard seems to be the way to break down the era of massed defences.

Ironically, Leitrim did just that to Wexford in the first half as the surging runs of Darragh Rooney, Tom Prior, Aidan Flynn and Conor Reynolds led directly to scores while another lung bursting run from Paul Keaney was only denied the ultimate reward by an outstanding save from man of the match Darragh Brooks early in the second half.

That missed chance from young Keaney and Keith Beirne's saved penalty could well serve as motifs for this year's campaign - doing so much right only for the final execution to elude Leitrim, a sort of tantalising death by a thousand cuts where you do so much right only for luck to desert you when you need it most.

Sense isn't so common after all

THE LAST POINT

I don't know if it is something inherent in some counties that finishing off chances is so hard or a trait unique to Leitrim but a more clinical edge would have seen Leitrim promoted to Division 3 this year and maybe battling with the big guns for Sam Maguire!

Some will say you make your own luck but missed goal chances against Sligo (League), New York and Wexford have plagued Andy Moran's side this term, turning what had been a promising year that had supporters dreaming of promotion and maybe even a Connacht Final appearance turning into one of those sort of nightmares where you get within touching distance of your dreams only to have it snatched away.

Whatever your views on what Leitrim have or haven't achieved this year, what the players on the field or Andy Moran & his management team  or the County Board might have done differently, you can't deny the fact that Leitrim were cruelly hit by absentees and injuries and while we might have blooded some potentially exciting players for the future in 2023, you can't lose the experience and years of built up strength and knowledge that Leitrim have lost this year.

Put just one of Ryan O'Rourke or Evan Sweeney in Sunday's team and you have a greater threat that would have allowed Keith Beirne, clearly still hampered by injury and not near his best, that bit of freedom that would have yielded better returns. Similarly Donal Casey in the defence adds running power and strength to a unit that has struggled against powerful runners all year.

Jordan Reynolds has been almost forgotten but this time last year, we were looking to the young Mohill man as a potential match winner and we're in a county that can ill afford to lose players of that calibre and the margins are literally that thin.

Maybe we all are the problem

THE LAST POINT

The task now is to hold on to what we have and get back what we've lost - I'm sure getting O'Rourke, Reynolds, Sweeney and Casey back on the field is priority number one while luring David Bruen back into the fold is another major priority for Andy Moran and his team but I'm not quite so sure that it is going to be that simple.

Sunday's team featured five players aged 30 or over and that would have been more had Evan Sweeney or Paddy Maguire been available, and another four who turn 28 in 2024- that's a healthy proportion of the squad and as we've seen this year, we can't afford to lose one of these players, let alone three or four but time waits for no man and certainly no sportsman or woman!