Ambition is driving Mohill on says Eamonn O’Hara ahead of Sunday's Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC Final

Ambition is what drives his players and it is what drives their manager Eamonn O’Hara ahead of next Sunday’s Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC Final as the former Sligo All-Star is thriving on the pressure of bringing the Fenagh Cup back to Mohill.

Taking over a team that just missed out in last year’s final means that expectations were high the minute the Sligo man took over from Liam Keenan but it is a challenge he has embraced: “The lads are winners. If you have a pick of a job, some people like to go into a job where you go from mid-table to the top, or bottom up to middle, or from Intermediate up to Senior.

“But when you go into a dressing room of guys that expect quality - I love that, I thrive on that and it is great to see those type of guys here. Mohill have some exceptional footballers, some of the best footballers in Leitrim with Keith, Jordan, Domhnaill, Shane, Conor, Oisin, James & David Mitchell, quality, Liam Rowley, great guys but they are winners.”

Yet if there are expectations on their manager to deliver success, Eamonn says it is a two-way street: “On the flip side, they expect quality but they have to deliver quality. They want to win but there is one thing being a winner and another getting to that top table. They know they have to deliver performance-wise, they know they have to execute on the day.

“Our semi-final wasn’t perfect but as they say of semi-finals, performance is irrelevant, it is about the result. We are there now and it is important we show up the next day.”

After a testing battle with Leitrim Gaels, the last week and a half has been devoted to peaking next Sunday in Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada against St Mary’s and Eamonn is all too aware of the challenge posed by their opponents: “The last 14 days is all about recovery, a little bit of sharpening work and obviously worried about our performance and hoping to deliver rather than focusing too much on Carrick. 

“We’re familiar with Carrick, we played them a couple of times, we know what they can do but they have us in a lovely place, they have us in that position to say we definitely won’t let them beat us in three games in a row - we won the League, beat them in the first round of the championship and I have no doubt they’ll come with a serious, serious attitude. We have to be prepared to meet that.”

And the Mohill manager has no doubts that his players can rise to that challenge, citing their response to losses at the hands of Ballinamore Sean O’Heslins and Fenagh St Caillins in the group stages as evidence of the resolve in the League champions’ camp: “This is a very ambitious group. They were obviously disappointed we had lost the two games to Fenagh and Ballinamore, albeit we were playing well, but ultimately, I knew what was in this group of players.

“Once we got to the quarter final, we knew that there was a performance in us and obviously the one against Ballinamore was exceptional. 

“We went from absolutely no way in hell of winning a final to all of a sudden being favourites and the one thing about that is that players hear that, it sinks in and you worry that it will affect their performance.

“But we managed those expectations very well and we’ve got to be happy with that, they put their hands up and it puts pressure on the guys who are there.”