By John Harrington

For some people, this Saturday’s Connacht semi-final clash between Roscommon and Leitrim at Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada is a step along a journey. For others, it’s a destination by itself.

Whether it’s Leitrim supporters wondering if this will finally be the year that they can emulate the great journey of 1994 and get all the way up to Croke Park, or Roscommon supporters wondering if they can retain the Nestor Cup for the first time since 1991, victory in Carrick-on-Shannon is a huge step in the right direction.

However for others, simply stepping foot onto the field is a triumph in itself – and that’s the case for Emlyn Mulligan, who has travelled an arduous journey to get back to a point where he feels he can play a role in senior championship football.

“I am delighted every time I can walk off the pitch without being stretchered off” he told GAA.ie last week, reflecting on his path to recovery following a third cruciate ligament injury.

“Every time I came off training I was delighted. It’s a weird acceptance, even results in games sometimes don’t matter as much. It’s a positive result if I am not injured”.

“I have only played six or seven games properly since the third recurrence of the injury. I just appreciate every day that I can go out and train. There are nights I come off the pitch and the two knees would be swelled up, I just have to adapt my lifestyle to it.

"I would come home there and ice and ice. My left knee would be very sore today after training very hard last night. I would be lucky here, I live beside Strandhill and I would be in the sea most days, it’s just about recovery”.

“Fitness wise, I feel great. It was massive to finish 90 minutes in Gaelic Park. The aim last time when I got the injury was to get back for that New York game.  And to be able to finish it out was very good in terms of my own achievements. Ten months ago I wouldn’t have been thinking about that, but life sends you different directions and all you can do is deal with it” he said.

For Roscommon’s Fergal Lennon, who could very easily end up marking Mulligan on Saturday, 2017 was also a write off with injury.

But as a young panel member with his reputation not yet proven, at least nowhere near as much as Mulligan, he went into 2018 with the goal of establishing himself on the team and getting a bit closer to where he needed to be with every game he played.

“Funnily, I’ve never felt 100%” he said at a recent training session in Kiltoom, reflecting on a Spring campaign where he was one of Roscommon’s stalwarts on their run to the Allianz League Division Two title.

“You’re catching up the whole time when you’ve missed twelve months or more with an injury, so I’ve been trying to build and I feel I’m getting better as I’ve gone on, fitness wise and with sharpness. I’m still building, I’m still not fully where I hope to be and hopefully as the summer goes on I’ll get there”.

“I missed pretty much all of last year so I had ground to make up. I set myself the goal of making it into the team because there’s a lot of competition in the half back line. I wanted to get one of the starting jerseys or at the very least, be in a position to contribute off the bench.

“Football wise, my skills are there, but in terms of aerobic fitness, I think there’s a good bit left in the tank still. When the pitches harden up in the summer and you’re hopping off the ground there’s no better feeling, but I haven’t felt that yet, even late in the league, so there’s another few percent to find."

Geographically, the two men couldn’t come from farther apart. Lennon hails from the Clann na nGael club, one of the most successful club sides in the country, based just West of the Shannon outside Athlone.

Mulligan is from the Melvin Gaels club in the very north of Leitrim, equally far away from the hotspots around Carrick-on-Shannon, Dromid, Roosky and Kilmore – all parts of the world where this local derby is the only thing that matters.

Lennon is acutely aware that for some of his colleagues, there can be no excuses for anything less than total commitment to this game.

“The lads from the north wouldn’t be long telling us that we have to produce the goods anyway! They’d always let us know that we can’t slip up, they’ll have to hear all about it as opposed to us down the south of the county! But definitely we know that we only want a win, nothing else will do”.

Mulligan too knows that while he has huge respect for the talent in the Roscommon side, there are players in the Leitrim camp will feel that this is a winnable game, in a way they might not if they were up against Galway or Mayo.

“We want to be in the game with ten minutes to go, and we’ll try and give ourselves that opportunity. It’s a David versus Goliath game, to me Roscommon, have the best forwards in Connacht. Even for ourselves to contain them is a huge challenge. But we have no fear going into it”.

“The people in South Leitrim would always have more optimism against Roscommon, regardless of last year’s result. It’s all about the border rivalry, it always adds that bit more to it. If we had Mayo coming they wouldn’t give us any hope.

"Roscommon could be better than Mayo but they still wouldn’t give us any chance. Psychologically there is this thing that we can compete with Roscommon. It hasn’t happened in the last number of years but it’s up to ourselves to change that whole thing.

"We need to give ourselves the belief and give our supporters something to base their belief on. That’s up to us to change that.

“It would be great if we could make some sort of a game of it. It might only happen every ten years but we go in there with that belief”.