"We'll do our talking on the field" says Leitrim manager Garrity ahead of Roscommon rematch

​Leitrim may have beaten Roscommon by 22 points less than two months ago in the Connacht Final but when the Rossies come back to Heartland Credit Union Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada next Sunday for the TG4 LGFA All-Ireland IFC Quarter Finals, Jonny Garrity is telling his team to take nothing for granted and do their talking on the field.

Leitrim will start Sunday’s clash (2pm throw-in) as red hot favourites with many marking the Green & Gold as potential All-Ireland Champions, a notion Garrity is quick to downplay: “I think that expectation probably exists within the county, I don’t think it exists outside of it, if I'm being honest. Any media that I've seen which has been previewing matches or talking about results with respect to the Intermediate All-Ireland have been talking about other teams when they're looking towards who the favourites are or who the team to watch is. But at the same time, we would put as much onus in that as we do any expectation.

“Both of those things are only external noise in other people's opinions, so for us it's strictly about what we do and we have to have ownership of controlling the controllables and that's what we're trying to do. So we might say five, six, seven times a week to the players that we keep the noise out and we concentrate on doing what we do. There's already noise about this match in terms of it being a revenge mission for Roscommon or righting the wrongs and things like that. For us, we're keeping the heads down, we're working hard and we'll do our talking on the field next Sunday.”

That doesn’t mean that Leitrim are downplaying the threat posed by Roscommon, even after the 4-18 to 0-8 victory on the May Bank Holiday Sunday: “Through tough battles, we've forged a respect for Roscommon and the players that have represented them so well. We know that they're full of very, very good players and we're certainly taking nothing for granted. We're going to have to be at our best and we're preparing for that performance. I believe they've got one or two familiar faces back after a few years away. It will help them, there's no question about that. I think they're a team who will benefit from that experience coming in and ability level coming in.

“They'll be looking for the performance on the day, I'm sure. They may have a bit of revenge on their mind, but whatever their motivation, we know that they'll be a good team and a hard team to beat and we're preparing ourselves for that battle.”

LEITRIM LADIES RELISH ROSSIES REMATCH

Having faced them in the provincial final, the Leitrim boss doesn’t see any relevance in that game to what might happen next Sunday: “Well, it can make it easier from the perspective of having played them before, having had that experience, having tried things that were successful on that day. All of those are good reference points, but I think this game, on its own merit, is a new game and we have to be really careful not to put any onus on that last performance. The Connacht Final is not going to help us come next Sunday in Pairc Sean, it is not going to kick the ball over the bar for us.

“We have to go out and earn it on the day and it would be an easy pitfall to think that because we've done it before, it'll just happen, but it certainly won't.”

Looking back over the Fermanagh game, Jonny agreed that Leitrim’s form fluctuated wildly within the game but highlighted the team’s mental fortitude: “The Fermanagh game, we got off to that fantastic start. We didn't play particularly well for the rest of the half. I think then any degree of playing our game according to the game plan we had in mind, to some degree, went out the window whenever we went down to 14 players and we had to dig it out.

“It was a really good backs against the wall battling performance with a player down and there's loads to gain from that in terms of the physical side of things and the mental fortitude of dealing with adversity. All of that was fantastic, but I think that in terms of implementing our game plan and playing according to the tactical plan that we had set out, we can do better. The incentive going into this Roscommon match is that we know we've got loads of room to improve on and we're very determined to do that now.”