Looking for home comforts
bonus for us. Pearse Park will be ready for the game and we are all looking forward to taking on Meath, although we have a poor record in the Leinster SFC.
I can’t understand that, particularly as when we go into the qualifiers we always perform well and have caused a number of surprises over the past few years.
‘If we could bring our qualifier form to the Leinster SFC then we would definitely fancy our prospects of getting a result against Meath, but we are under no illusions about the challenge that we face.
‘This is a great chance for us and I’m delighted that we have a home quarter-final. We are usually involved in the preliminary rounds, but this weekend there will be a bit of a buzz around the place.
‘Hopefully, we will get a good crowd from Longford and that we won’t be outnumbered by Meath supporters.’
The county has a relatively small population, around the 40,000 mark, roughly the same as Drogheda. Therefore it is extremely difficult for them to compete with the more densely populated counties.
‘If we could get 10% of the population at the game that would be 4,000 supporters and that would be a tremendous boost for us and for the players when they run out for the start,’ Connerton continued.
‘Our club football is very strong and all the players get a chance to play club football whether they are on a county panel or not.
‘We were focused on getting the players back into county mode after all the club league games in April. That was our first objective and then we started our preparations in earnest for this challenge.
‘There might be a view or a perception that Meath are not going well, but I wouldn’t buy into that in any form. They have been pushing consistently over the last few years for a place in the NFL Division 1 and they are a solid Division 2 team at the moment with aspirations of the Super 8 place.
‘Our main objective is to win a Leinster championship game, so that represents a fair gulf in the respective targets of each county.
‘I can understand that Meath supporters are not happy with the performances this year, but then supporters are generally never too happy unless they are celebrating Leinster and All-Ireland success.
‘I can tell you now that we know that Longford will be playing in the qualifiers this year. It’s just a matter of what stage we enter the qualifiers, that’s reality for Longford and for many other counties.
‘We have no major injury concerns, but we are operating off that low population base and all we can do is try to perform to our best, if we are to have any chance.’