​Every champion has a target on their back – Leitrim Gaels' Mal Guckian

Leitrim Gaels may have just won their first ever Division 1 League title but manager Mal Guckian knows that his team will have a massive target on their back as they set out into this year’s Connacht Gold Leitrim Senior Football Championship as defending champions for the first time ever.

Winning an emotional title in 2025, Mal Guckian expects his team to be the target of everyone but it is nothing he does not expect: “Every champion that has been, all of us have the target on the back. To be honest, I think we had a target on our back last year anyway. It's great to see that all quiet down a little bit. We had targets on our back last year - we have a bigger one this year. There's four or five really good teams in that competition that I think can easily lift the Fenagh Cup on their day. It's great to be able to say we're definitely one of them as well. We’re going to try to defend our title but it's going to be massively hard work.

“I learned more this year listening to friends of mine from Gortletteragh and different places. They had massive, massive great teams in their day and it was only when they said it that we never won one. You'll have all these teams and then you have a Manorhamilton team that's very youthful there and they have some serious talent coming in. I reckon there'll be a couple of shocks in different areas, whether the main four or five teams get to the semi-finals or whatever. But I think you'll definitely see one outsider coming through into that last four.”

Breakthrough winners often find it hard to raise themselves to the same heights the next year, a factor Mal is definitely aware of: “You get that first year of raw grit. Everyone jumps on the wagon, it's going full throttle. Then you have to reset and think how you're going to approach the year ahead with the new league format. With lads carrying injuries, you're doing different things. Then you know you're going into a Championship that you're going to be absolutely targeted as you said beforehand. It's trying to build up. I reckon that the Championship will be tit for tat in a lot of the rounds at the beginning.”

A new League format has served Letirim Gaels well with more chances to try players out and Mal sets out the challenges to getting his team ready: “I think mentally you have to get the lads, their bodies and their minds ready for that. One good thing I suppose about the league previous years is it was bang, bang, bang, bang. You were playing at a high intensity every week. I agree there should be breaks, you were getting to use the league to try a lot more players in your squad. That was one thing.”

Resilience under pressure is a quality Mal believes makes champions: “When you're coming down to that nitty gritty, that five minutes to go, that point or two points, not to have a panic; to see where your leaders are, to see if the year of training has been fruitful. That the lads don't go rogue, as I call it, in vital stages. I think that's the sign of champions. You'll see the Mohills and Ballinamore, you see the mainstays of teams, they know when they get in their last ten minutes, when it's down to the wire, that they're feeling very confident. It's all new for us.”

Whatever about planning for the coming campaign, the Gaels will be without the considerable talents of Donal Casey who had to retire due to a neck injury sustained in last October’s County Final and Mal feels the loss of the former county star: “Donal is a massive loss in every way, his leadership qualities and, undoubtedly, he is one of the most skilful players anyone has ever seen, especially with Leitrim, so he is a massive loss. It was unbeknownst to any of us how serious his injury was and the fact that it could have been so much worse, I think it's a godsend that he's still here and was able to walk.

“The biggest thing, and I'm sure Donal felt a little bit there today, was seeing him walking out on the pitch after the League Final. Seeing him after the game. We'd be talking all the time and everything but I wouldn't be saying ‘right, we're doing a training, I'd love to see you there’ or ‘we're going into Pairc Sean for a league final, it'd be great to see you’. It is so tough, Donal has given an awful lot to football. He loved his football and to have it ripped away at such an early age.”

The loss of Casey, however, doesn’t negate the excitement around the Gaels camp as they set out to defend the Fenagh Cup: “Listen, we're all excited for the Championship and we'll all be looking forward to it, it'll give us a new pep in our step, including yourself.”