Leitrim's goal is to go to Croke Park and win Lory Meagher Cup - Wall

Mike Wall may well be urging his players to enjoy the build-up and excitement ahead of next Sunday’s Lory Meagher Cup Final against Longford in Croke Park but the Leitrim manager stresses that winning the final at GAA headquarters is the main goal of everyone associated with the Green & Gold.

“We are looking forward to it,” said Mike when the Observer visited the McGovern Aughavas Leitrim GAA Centre of Excellence ahead of the Final, adding “We've got an awful lot of things to get out of the way first, the logistics of everything. It's getting closer and closer and closer. All the small little things like tickets and stuff like that, we're trying to get out of the way early and then we'll have all next week then just to concentrate on it.”

Asked about his approach to the Final and whether he advocates full-on embrace of the occasion or just treat it as another game, Mike treads a fine line between the two: “You have to embrace the occasion, if you don't embrace it and enjoy everything that goes with it then what's the point? Because it's not just another game, but the significance of it is fantastic. There's thousands of GAA players that would give their left arm to be in the position that we're in right now - to play a national final in Croke Park. The opportunity doesn't come around very often, like the lads were saying it's 2019 since Leitrim got there but up to last year, it was 2019 since the Tipperary hurlers got to play a game in Croke Park.

“When you look at it like that, getting to Croke Park and getting to play a national final in Croke Park is the pinnacle of any gaelic games player, no matter what grade you're at, so you have to treat it with, you have to enjoy all these things. I've been involved in all Ireland finals before and it was the same thing, you do your best to enjoy the build up but you don't let it take away from our main goal. The goal is not to go to Croke Park and enjoy ourselves, our main goal is to go to Croke Park and win and that's what all the focus is at the moment.”

That is a different mindset - focusing on winning in Croke Park rather than letting the occasion and surroundings overwhelm you but Mike has huge faith in the focus of the Leitrim players: “It is, of course, a different mindset but like these lads are so focused, you know I'm not even worried about things getting into their heads or anything like that. I'm sure you've been talking to a few of them there tonight, they're so focused on it. We know getting to Croke Park would be absolutely fantastic, winning in Croke Park would be fantastic but losing in Croke Park, it'll be the loneliest place in the world and we don't want that.”

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Mike’s faith in his players has been a constant theme throughout the year with the Kilkenny man highlighting the ability in his players, stressing that the only thing holding back Leitrim’s small ball code being the lack of game time: “I see it at training - I've been around the game since I was four, five years of age, you know a good hurler when you see them, you know a talent when you see it.

“Some lads have talent, you just need to unlock it. These boys have talent and I've said that all along, lack of game time is the killer here in Leitrim. For any inter-county team or any team at any grade or in any sport to go on a nine win winning streak is super and you don't get that from being a lucky team or a bad team. You have to be a good team and the belief I have in these lads - I just want to see how far they can actually go. I believe that they can go farther than Lory Meagher, I think they can compete in the next grade up but to test that belief out, we've got to win on Sunday.”

Longford pose a severe test to the ambition of Mike and his players and it is one the Leitrim manager is not taking lightly: “Anyone who wants to see what the Lory Meagher is really like go back and watch that game between ourselves and Longford in the group stages. I remember saying it to someone that was beside me, I thought the pace of that game from both teams was phenomenal and you're hearing they're saying oh this is Lory Meagher.

“Longford cause us trouble because they have that ability, they are well coached, they have good hurlers. I suppose a few things that went wrong that day for us, we had two or three of our players gone off with blood injuries that day and there was a bit of carnage on our behalf on the sideline you know getting lads in and when someone comes in who are they picking up and all because the game was so fast.

“I thought we handled it well and we brought back that deficit and look when we got ahead the big thing was we never relinquished the lead. Obviously there were nerves on both teams because we'd both won our two games before that and, with all due respect to what was coming afterwards, both teams knew whoever wins this is going to go very very hard and get into the final.”

Leitrim may head into the final as slight favourites given their unbeaten status in the competition but Mike doesn’t believe in complicating things too much! “We’ve trained very well last week and we had a very good performance in the Cavan game, we were absolutely delighted with our performance and a lot of lads put up their hands up for selection for the final.

“We like to play a very fast brand of hurling, we don't concentrate on tactics, we don't concentrate on crazy movements or crazy formations or anything like that, we play a very fast brand of hurling and our belief is that if you hurl better than the team you're playing you have a great chance of winning the game.”

Croke Park, however, is a very different arena and Mike agrees that whoever adapts best to GAA headquarters will go a long way to winning the title: “It plays differently up there in Croke Park but it is about who adapts up in Croke Park - will players be looking into the stands, will be looking around them at the amazing arena that they are in or will they concentrate on their game.

“That's the be all and end all, it's whoever performs well on the day. You look at Cork last year, didn't perform in the second half and lost by 15 points. Now Tipperary are going to finish bottom of the Munster group so it's all on the day. I think myself, whether it is ourselves or Longford, it's whatever team performs best on the day will win the game.”

Does that mean Leitrim are confident they can bring the Cup home for the second time? “We are confident, we're not overly confident because we know Longford are an extremely good team, they're very well coached. Diarmuid Cahill and his management team, Diarmuid has done a great job with them, he really has. We've played them four times over the last two years and I think we're up three points in terms of aggregate scores.

“We won by three last year and drew a game, they won by three this year and we won by three so there's nothing between the two teams. We're very confident that we can go out and get the performance that's needed to get over the line but we're not naive enough to say that they won't make us work for it.”