Pictured is Leitrim Senior footballer, Keith Beirne, who has today teamed up with Allianz Insurance to look ahead to the upcoming Allianz Football League fixtures. For only the second time ever, the outcome of the Allianz Football League has a direct impact on qualification for the GAA All Ireland Senior Football Championship, heightening interest in the competition.
By Cian O’Connell
Keith Beirne senses something is stirring in Leitrim. Undoubtedly Allianz Football League Division Four defeats against Wexford and Wicklow hurt deeply, but the Leitrim management and panel are remaining positive.
Two demanding matches await against Laois and Sligo, but a couple of victories might be sufficient to earn promotion for Andy Moran’s evolving team.
“That is something Andy was saying to us and even putting into the group this morning,” Beirne, the prolific Leitrim forward, remarks ahead of an important stint.
“We have Championship games now, it is good for us and it is good for the fans and neutrals, knowing if we beat Laois it is going to be a do or die against Sligo.
“Laois is do or die, it is the Championship level you want to be playing at. Those two games are must wins and will set us up well for travelling to New York.
“You'd always like to have the safety net of being on eight or 10 points saying if we messed up against Laois we could still probably be okay for Sligo, but it makes the Laois game massive for us and them.”
Vital games are imminent for Leitrim in League and Championship. The provincial draw in Connacht means Leitrim, Sligo, London or New York will reach the All-Ireland series. Otherwise a series of fixtures in the Tailteann Cup will be completed, but matches are precisely what Beirne craves. “That is a big one for us,” Beirne says.
“I know when I made my debut season in 2017, we played London that year and we got a good hammering against Roscommon. Then we lost a qualifier straightaway, the year was over. That was the way I was brought into the inter-county set-up.
Leitrim footballer Keith Beirne recieves his 2022 Tailteann Cup Team of the Year award from Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Larry McCarthy. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
“You play in your league, you have one or two championship games, then it is done. The exciting thing, I know we are trying to push very hard for promotion and not look past that, but when you do finish that it isn't the end that Leitrim are used to.
“We are looking forward to a really exciting summer of actually playing ball and playing in front of your 7,000 or 8,000 in nice sunny weather. That is what everyone dreams about doing, it is what we dreamt about doing. So it is very exciting - the summer months ahead.”
Ultimately, though, Beirne is delighted that a connection has been forged between Andy Moran’s outfit and Leitrim supporters. “You want to win games, but you want to create an interest around your team,” Beirne says.
“You want to bring fans in the gate - to play in front of more people. That is one thing we are seeing a lot. Way more are coming to our games, there is a travelling support, there is a massive home support.
“We see from watching TV kids flooding on after games, we had a small bit of that, but since the Tailteann Cup last year that has kept going.
“We beat Carlow in the league, the pitch was flooded with little kids everywhere. So there is just a great hype and buzz around the team, it gets you to training earlier, it gets you more excited every week thinking about it. So there is on a personal level and on a team level, we are in a better place.”
Potential exists, but the Mohill attacker wants Leitrim to make strides in the coming weeks and months.
“It is frustrating in a sense seeing us in Division Four,” Beirne replies. “We would see ourselves at a higher level. That is why we placed so much emphasis on trying to get out.
Leitrim senior football manager Andy Moran. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
“I feel if we get out of Division Four this time we will stay in Division Three and move up the ranks. There is very little between Division Three and Division Four. We feel we need to be up the top, moving up to Division Three, playing in that higher standard to try to move us along.
“There is about 10 or 12 of us around a similar age, we all came into the panel - eight of us - when we were about 17 or 18. We all came in at once, we have been around the past five or six years.
“There is a good crop of younger and still some of the old guard too. The standard is there, but we just need to get up the levels to cement that, to keep improving as a county.”
Moran’s passion and purpose means Leitrim’s players are believing again. A solid foundation is being established. “The big one is the professionalism; he has brought a sense of that with him coming from a Mayo set-up,” Beirne says.
“In Leitrim we have maybe been neglected in that sense, for years we've always had a trainer doing S&C and doing drills on the pitch. We never really had real structures in place. Andy came in, he said he need to have full-time S&C, we have trainers, everything is separate.
“So they can develop us more; we have a full-time S&C, our stats have gone through the roof compared to what they were a year or two ago.
“So small little things like that on the professional side of things, where we are getting more benefit out of things like that. People wouldn't even notice, but Andy has brought that and it is helping us massively.”
Beirne, who has scored 4-42 in five leagues tussles so far in 2023, is relishing the responsibility. A busy spell awaits for Leitrim.
