Replying To Boxtyeater: "The shrewd Leitrim football men are obviously dissecting the days performance before issuing a conclusion. Their spokesmen will somehow persuade us that we were victorious.
Maybe we've reached the end of this nonsense."
Poor day yesterday. Obviously delighted with the win but not much else. Poor attendance ( whatever happened to the 12,000 sold tickets ?), awful first half for Leitrim, they couldn't seem to get anything right. With the game practically won at half time, our lads lacked intensity in second half, Leitrim upped theirs, pushed us back, and showed what they are capable of. That sub ( Kelly) looks the real deal, any more promising youngsters coming through ?
We've had a bad run with injuries to key players and this to my mind is brought about by the intensity of the season between colleges competitions, national league and then the championship. Mayo for example lost to Roscommon on their 1st day out and didn't appear again until last Sunday. Part of our issues is that we seem to have a plethora of young lads battling for the forwards jerseys. Not so many challengers for defensive positions and this has proved our undoing all year. For years we've been blessed with quality, combatative defenders and just when we discover quality forwards the defence, whether via personnel or positional placements/rule changes have been too frequently exposed.
I'd like to say that we're bristling with underage talent but the Connacht championship story makes poor reading.
But we'll come again, a somewhat, albeit slightly, better year than 2025.