CROKES COULD PROVE A GOLIATH TOO FAR

A HALF-parish of 447 citizens against a Killarney side that can’t find room for one of the game’s greatest. Shane Mulligan jokes that if Colm Cooper wants to put his struggles to break into the Dr Crokes starting team behind him, he’d always be welcome in Mullinalaghta. ‘We’ll give him a game! We’ll give him a run if he wants to make a move up, I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to slot him in. It just shows the strength in depth in that club. ‘We also realise that there is a lot of talent in our own dressing room. That’s what we’ll be concentrating on.’ Even wearing the mantle of Leinster champions, the expectation is that there will be no repeat of the Miracle of Mullinalaghta, when the Longford champions stunned Dublin powerhouse Kilmacud Crokes to become the first team from the county to win the provincial title. Everyone backing Dr Crokes to progress to St Patrick’s Day? It’s nothing new, says the captain ahead of this afternoon’s AIB All-Ireland club semi-final in Thurles. ‘Dr Crokes have been on this journey before. You look at the names within that team and how successful they’ve been with Kerry. It’s very hard to argue the point that a Longford champion is going to compete with that. But we’re happy to be here in the build-up for an All-Ireland semi-final and we’re here to compete.’ Mulligan himself knows what it feels like to take on Kerry opposition in a high-stakes game. He was wing-back on the Longford team that faced Kerry in the 2006 qualifier in Killarney, a day that Crokes duo Eoin Brosnan and the Gooch featured, the former grabbing a hat-trick with Kieran Donaghy announcing himself properly on the inter-county stage. ‘I was back playing then. Huge occasion. I don’t think there is anyone who is not a fan of Kerry football. ‘Look, we’ve always been the underdogs. Even within the Longford championship we were underdogs because it’s such a small place and small panel of players. ‘We’ve always had the underdogs tag so it’s something that we’re used to and we don’t read anything into it as such. We just try to look after our own performance and our own dressing room. We’re not underestimating the task at hand with Dr Crokes.’