LEITRIM DEFYING THE ODDS
Hyland’s panel are providing the feel-good story of season
IT is just as well there’s no hard border between north and south this afternoon as hundreds of giddy Leitrim supporters will form a convoy towards the Maiden City as their team play Derry in Celtic Park. The result doesn’t matter. This is only a dress-rehearsal for the Division 4 final, but that should not dim the spotlight shining on Terry Hyland and his players.
Dead rubber or not, I expect Leitrim to set down a marker against their much-vaunted opponents, a team that shouldn’t be anywhere near the bottom tier. In 2009, the same year that Leitrim were condemned to the bottom grade, Derry were contesting a Division 1 final against Kerry – and played in one as recently as 2014 when they met Dublin. It’s still hard to believe where the Oak Leaf County have found themselves.
These sides will see a fair bit of each other in the next couple of years. Meeting in Croke Park in a fortnight’s time and plying their trade in Division 3 next year. The connections between the two counties go back a bit further.
A quarter of a century ago, when the green and gold of Leitrim last enjoyed this kind of profile, Derry played a part in helping them capture the Connacht title. A lifelong friendship with the late Eamonn Coleman began when I took over the county.
Coleman had just led his own county to the promised land, making the All-Ireland breakthrough in 1993. I was trying to lift the horizons and enhance the dreams of those playing for Leitrim and saw Derry as a template. Coleman brought his All-Ireland winners down to play us in four challenge games – I still remember the excitement in Drumkeeran when Coleman came down with the Sam Maguire Cup for a pitch opening.
We didn’t win any of those games, but our players learnt what it was like to face the big boys and that did wonders for them as we went on our successful Connacht campaign.
It is impossible to put a value on the benefits of five straight victories for a team like Leitrim, even in Division 4. Even better was that two or three of those games went down to the wire and they emerged on the right side. That’s a magnificent tonic for instilling belief in young players.
The likes of Ryan O’Rourke, Michael McWeeney, Mark Plunkett and Dean McGovern are as talented as many of the players in the top counties. Where they are lacking is in the belief that they have the right to win trophies.
Of course, the county is battling a losing cause in the numbers game. The last census put the total population at just over 32,000 people. To put that in perspective, one suburb of Dublin, Swords, has more than 42,000. Leitrim have roughly 300 adult players to select from. That is from the senior, intermediate and junior ranks.
They don’t have the assembly lines that we see in Kerry or Dublin, so every gifted player must be nurtured properly. That’s why the building of a centre of excellence was vitally important to the county and they managed to do it when a lot of bigger counties, such as Mayo, still don’t have one. That gives you the sense of ambition among people involved in Leitrim football.
Having a centre like that, on the road to Dublin, keeps players interested. Like many of the smaller counties, for a long time, Leitrim’s biggest issue was holding on to players at the end of a season. Player turnover used to ruin any chance of developing continuity and consistency within the squad.
When Benny Guickian addressed the players after their Championship defeat to Monaghan last summer, he implored each of them to make themselves available to the next manager. And they seem to have done that for Terry Hyland.
In the past, some players would come back midway through the Allianz League or even for the Championship. But it looked like everyone reported for duty in preseason this term.
The seeds of this present success have been there for a few years. Enda Lyons is the strength & conditioning coach in Hyland’s backroom. He coached the minors a few years ago and was involved with the Under 21s in the last championship at that grade when they were beaten narrowly by Galway in Tuam Stadium after Ryan O’Rourke, their best player and star of this Division 4 campaign, had to go off with a hamstring injury.
The perception at the time was that this was another Leitrim side bowing the knee to a giant rival, but it was in fact the first stirring of what we have seen this spring.
This has been the feel-good story, so far, of this GAA season. I have been told that every bus in the county is booked on March 30 to ferry supporters to Croke Park and additional buses are needed from Sligo and Donegal.
It is extraordinary to think a footballer as talented as Emlyn Mulligan has never played at headquarters. None of these players have.
We have told that Croke Park belongs to us all, but it can seem to be a closed shop if you play football for a county like Leitrim. We should all be thrilled they are getting their day in the sun.