This final excites me as much as playing..if not Mor
LEITRIM BOSS ON BUZZ OF LEADING TEAM TO CROKER
ANDY MORAN says his first visit to Croke Park as a manager excites him as much as any he made as a player.
Although the main aim of promotion has been achieved after Sunday’s win over Tipperary, Leitrim have the bonus of a Division Four final against Laois this Saturday – just the sixth time that they will have ever played a senior game at Croke Park.
The previous occasions were a League semi against Derry in 1959, an All-ireland semi and League game against Dublin in 1994 and 1995 respectively, the 2006 Tommy Murphy Cup final against Louth and the 2019 Division Four final against Derry, all of which were lost.
Moran played there in six All-ireland finals alone.
But in his third year in the job, and on the back of losing to New York on penalties in last year’s Connacht Championship, the former Mayo star has pulled off his first big feat in management.
He said: “It has been amazing. Leitrim have played in Croke Park five times in their history.
“I’ve heard a lot of talk over the last couple of weeks about cutting League finals but the main attraction for a manager like me or anyone that is with a smaller county, is the opportunity to play a final in Croke Park. It is huge.
“That was our target at the start of the year, we are there now. The people of Leitrim are really getting in behind it and it is exciting for the whole county. I’ve played there multiple times but I’m as excited now as I ever have been.”
Moran’s career was played out a long way from Division Four but he added: “If you want to come to watch exciting football with turnovers in it, excitement, catches – every bit of skill in it – Division Four is great to watch.
“You have a team like Wexford, who have won their last four games by more than 40 points, a really exciting team, a team that could really do something in the very near future. For us to finish ahead of them is a huge achievement. You cannot underestimate it.
“For the last two years we got to eight points twice, we won four games twice, we were always saying if we could win that fifth game we’d get over the line and we did. That is the way it ended up.”
And Moran hailed the influence of Mickey Graham (above), who he added to his team ahead of this year immediately after he stepped down as Cavan boss.
He said: “Mickey has been huge for us. Since Mickey came in we haven’t reinvented the wheel.
“It is nearly on-field decisions. A little one, we knew that Longford were getting well beaten last weekend by Wexford. Mickey was there to lean on – is it the right thing to tell the boys at half-time that they were getting well beaten?
“Even a decision like that he goes, ‘Absolutely, you have to’. He was in that position before.”