Murphy is satisfied with the result from a provincial contest

A QUARTER-FINAL win in the Connacht

GAA Senior Football Championship is nothing to be sneezed at. Sligo were much better than Leitrim – simple as that – and the player who scored 0-5 in Carrick-on-Shannon last Sunday, team captain Niall Murphy, was satisfied with the 0-15 to 0-6 outcome.

But Sligo’s wide count in the first-half when playing with the breeze – the winners kicked 11 wides – gave the Coolera-Strandhill talisman reason to fret.

“I was worried – that breeze was worth a minimum of eight or nine points and we had nine points from 17 [chances]. We had a lot of wides in the first-half, some of them stupid shots.

“If you are eight points up at half-time then you are usually happy and confident but that breeze was just so strong that we should have been further ahead.

He continued: “We just didn’t know what could happen in the second-half so we had a completely different mindset – we had to play a possession game against the breeze and be really, really patient.

“I think we managed the breeze pretty well in both halves. I figured that if we were to get four or five points in the second-half that we would win the game because I didn’t see Leitrim hitting 14 or 15 points.”

A year ago at Carrick-onShannon – this time in an Allianz Football League Division Four fixture – Sligo struggled their way to a one-point win.

But Murphy, pictured, wasn’t sure if last Sunday’s result is a sign of massive Sligo progression.

“Leitrim are after coming up to Division Three so they’ve stepped it up a gear as well. They played only a week ago [in the Division Four final] and they lost a couple of players who were with the U-20s.

The number of points (1-27) scored by Niall Murphy in eight appearances for Sligo in 2024.

“I think the biggest test for us will be against Galway and that will tell us how far we’ve come since last year’s final when we lost to them by 14 points.

“Still, I’m happy to have a Connacht semi-final to look forward to but we were disappointed that we didn’t get promotion in the Allianz Football League.”

If Sligo beat Galway later this month they’ll secure a place in the Sam Maguire Cup – rather than the Tailteann Cup – and Murphy always wants Sligo to be competing at the highest level possible.

“We still have to be realistic about where