Leitrim still in the fight after rolling with the punches
Mark Diffley of Leitrim pictured with the Tailteann Cup at the launch of the Tailteann Cup at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
It’s been a tough year for the Leitrim footballers, but Sunday’s Tailteann Cup clash with Tipperary can signpost the road to redemption.
A win will secure progress to the preliminary quarter-finals of the competition and ensure they don’t end the season with an unenviable record of 10 defeats and one walkover from 11 competitive matches in 2025.
With 20 players from last year’s panel unavailable this year for a variety of reasons and with Mickey Graham stepping down as manager just two months after taking on the role it was always going to be a very difficult year for Leitrim.
The League campaign was a painful one but the players and management have shown a lot character to roll with those punches and come out fighting for championship football.
Some honour was restored with a creditable performance against Mayo in Connacht and they were unlucky not to claim their first win of the year in Round 2 of the Tailteann Cup against Sligo.
Young players have been successfully blooded and there’s clearly a good spirit in the camp despite the challenges they’ve faced, so if they could win qualification for the knock-out rounds of the Tailteann Cup it would be great achievement considering the circumstances.
“Everyone knew this year at the start it would be challenging after everything that happened with Mickey leaving and then Stevie (Poacher) coming in later and a big turnover of players, losing 20 players in one year is unheard of, even for us in a small county that usually has a lot of turnover,” says Leitrim captain Mark Diffley.
“We knew it was going to be a very difficult year from the start, and then we had a lot of injuries in the League which didn't help. As a team and management there was a sense of frustration throughout the League. Things weren't going our way and it seemed to be one thing after another being thrown at us from here, there, and everywhere.
“To be fair to the lads we all stuck together because we know what we're capable of, especially when we have all of our players available. We have an awful lot of new lads and it was always going to take them a while to get used to the standard and where they needed to be.
“I think then against Mayo in the Connacht championship we released a bit of frustration and showed what we can do and what we should be doing. It was great to see that from the crowd, they felt our energy and gave it straight back to us.”
Mark Diffley of Leitrim during the Táilteann Cup Round 1 match between Kildare and Leitrim at Cedral St Conleth's Park in Newbridge, Kildare. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile.
Such a big exodus from the Leitrim panel was unfortunate timing considering they’d won promotion from Division 4 of the Allianz Football League last year.
Diffley estimates there are around 25 former Leitrim team-mates now living in Australia, Canada, and the USA, but he doesn’t hold any grudges against those who put travel or other ambitions ahead of county football.
“You can never be pissed off with lads,” he says. “There's a lot more to the world than just sport and that's understandable. Young people are going to go travelling and some people are going to be starting families so there's loads of issues being faced by players nowadays.
“You can't hold that personally against anyone, obviously. It was a bit disappointing because I was so excited to be going into Division Three. We didn't give a good account of ourselves in the Division 4 Final last year. We had beaten Laois two years previous to that and to get a bit of a 10 or 12 point drumming in the final was a bit disappointing.
“I was thinking we'll go in next year and build on where we are, we had three or fouur years really good work together, and obviously that turnover killed all of that momentum.
“But you can't hold that against players either. There were an awful lot of lads with very valid reasons for not being able to commit this year. It wasn't just travelling, you had injuries and life commitments.
“For Leitrim it was the perfect storm nearly this year between lads travelling, injuries, retirements, the manager stepping away, all of that type of thing.”
The country's demographic shift from a rural to increasingly urban society is a huge challenge for counties like Leitrim.
213 GAA clubs serve just 8% of the island's population in connacht.
Half of the country's population now lives on a relatively thin sliver of land down the east coast of Ireland and young people are leaving the west of the country in their droves in search of employment opportunities.
Rural depopulation means more and more clubs are struggling to field teams and that has a knock-on effect at county level for the likes of Leitrim.
“Definitely," says Diffley. "I myself am Dublin based and you're travelling up and down twice or three-times a week and it is a long slog for 11 months of the year.
"Leitrim are always going to face the brunt of that more so than other counties, especially with our very small playing population. You could probably field two teams of lads who are over in Australia at the minute. That's just the way it is and a challenge we have to face.
"I think Leitrim as a county needs to think of more solutions to incentivise players to stay a little bit longer. We probably don't have the same incentive that other counties have maybe to stay playing with Leitrim for a long period of time.
"We played Galway in the Connacht Championship three years ago and it's pretty much the same Galway team that's playing at the minute wheras there's only myself and one other who started that game still on the Leitrim panel.
"That's where you're coming from. This year was the biggest turnover yet and we'd be hoping to get some of those lads back in the near future.
"To be fair to the lads still here we all stuck together because we know what we're capable of, especially when we have all of our players available. We have an awful lot of new lads and it was always going to take them a while to get used to the standard and where they needed to be.
"I think then against Mayo in the Connacht championship we released a bit of frustration and showed what we can do and what we should be doing. It was great to see that from the crowd, they felt our energy and gave it straight back to us."
Referee Niall Cullen performs the coin toss in the presence of Mayo captain Stephen Coen, left, and Leitrim captain Mark Diffley before the Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship semi-final match between Leitrim and Mayo at Avant Money Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada in Carrick-on-Shannon, Leitrim. Photo by Thomas Flinkow/Sportsfile.
Diffley is just 24 but that makes the Leitrim captain one of the older heads in the current group. He's shown a lot of maturity to both lead by example with the quality of his play this year and also give a helping hand to the less experienced players in the panel whenever needed.
"You're just trying your best to keep everyone together and obviously mix the younger lads with the lads who have been there for a couple of years and get them into a routine and doing what we should naturally be doing anyway," he says.
"It's a very close group, that's something I would say. The young lads have been great. As soon as they came in they got on the same page straight away.
"There's a good atmosphere around it.
"I think this year we had five U20s starting matches so we are bringing through a lot of talent. Even last year and the year before we were generaly a younger team.
"Obviously we've lost a lot of experience from the dressing-room this year and you probably saw that throughout the League but there is talent there and now it's about keeping this group together for a couple of years.
"That's not to say it's going to take a couple of years, because playing these games, especially in the Tailteann Cup, is going to accelerate their development very quickly."
Their performance two weeks ago against Sligo was certainly indicitative of that. A team that included four players who had featured for the county U20 team four days previously looked like they could claim a famous victory when they led by seven points at one stage in the second-half, but they were floored by a late Sligo comeback.
If they can take the positives from that match into this game with Tipperary on Sunday and find a way to win, it wouldn't just salavage the season but also lay the foundation for something to build on in 2026.
"Definitely, this competition is great for us to build on going forward," says Diffley. "We need to get lads as many high intensity games as we can. That's only going to accelerate their development. It nearly gives them a couple of years experience quicker than most counties would.
"That's really good for us in the long-term but we're in this competition for the short-term as well. There is a lot of lads that want to be successful as quick as we can. That is still very much in the forefront of our minds, that we want to go far in this competition.
"It's not too long ago that we were a penalty shoot-out away against Sligo from a semi-final here in Croke Park. Last year we probably let it slip in the preliminary quarter-final against Wicklow.
"It's a competition we know we can be competitive in and we want to be. It's good for our long term development but we also want to be successful in the short-term."
