Focused on Saturday final
Kilkerrin-Clonberne could be one of the best club teams that they’ll ever face.
In last October’s Connacht semi-final Kilkerrin-Clonberne overpowered Cora Staunton’s Carnacon from Mayo, 2-19 to 2-6, with Olivia Divilly shooting 1-7 for the Galway champions. “They are exceptional. Their record speaks for itself. In the last fews years they’ve been dominant in Connacht and that is no mean feat.” “Because they run the ball from deep and they have such proficient ball-carriers, they don’t have to overly change their style from one game to another.”
“But, with the inside forwards that they have, they can also play the ball direct. Because they have up to a dozen Galway Senior players, I suppose they can hurt most teams.”
Leetch and St Nathy’s won’t back down, despite the long odds of them causing an upset.
“We’re focused on ourselves – we are going out to win the game,” Leetch declared.
“We will look to hurt them, look at their strengths and try to negate them. I’m happy enough where we are – the players’ fitness levels are good because they were training on their own for months during lockdown.”
“We believe in ourselves as a group, we set our own targets. This could be the day that we hit every target and we just come up against a better team and you just have to accept that – but we’re definitely on an upward curve.” He added: “We want to win the game. We don’t want to be in a Connacht final just to make up the numbers or just to be there to have a crack at it.” “Three Sligo clubs are through to Connacht finals so that’s good for Ladies Football in the county.”
Leetch has a concern about the availabilty of top-class forward Ciara Gorman, who missed Sligo’s last two Lidl National Football League games because of injury. He hopes that she is available for
Saturday’s showdown at Markievicz Park.
Away from activities on the field, St Nathy’s have proven themselves to be a club for the community – witness the recognition for their immense input when taking part in the Lidl One Good Club initiative, a five-step youth mental health awareness programme.