Paddy Maguire of Leitrim during the Tailteann Cup launch at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
By John Harrington
The Tailteann Cup offers a chance of redemption for the Leitrim footballers according to experienced defender, Paddy Maguire.
They were in a sore spot after becoming the first team to ever lose to New York in the Connacht Championship, but adversity breeds resilience and they’re highly motivated now to prove a point.
“It’s been three or four weeks since the New York game now and in fairness to Andy (Moran) and the lads in the backroom team they brought us down to earth straight away," says Maguire.
“We went back training on the Friday, we had a few days off and we did a debrief and a few discussions of what went wrong. Obviously our reputation hurt for a few days after, but the character within the team in the last few weeks has been brilliant and everyone stayed together.
“We had a few challenges and got a lot of positives out of those, so we are ready to go for the Tailteann Cup.
“We saw how successful the Tailteann Cup was last year and the beauty of it, we had the early exit in New York and now have the Tailteann Cup to look forward to and we are guaranteed three games and it’s only going to get better.”
The Leitrim players predictably enough came in for some criticism from social media keyboard warriors in the aftermath of the defeat to New York, but Maguire says it hasn’t affected the group adversely.
“I kind of felt myself that I knew when New York won their first game in the championship that it was going to get a lot of media attention, but look, the lads were over in New York and had a few days away to themselves,” he says.
“It obviously got a lot of media attention, but we couldn’t have done any more in terms of preparation and on the day we just weren’t clinical enough. There was no wild abuse thrown at players or managers or anything, it was just ‘how did we lose?’ We ticked all the boxes going into that game, it was just on the day we didn’t take our chances and we came out the wrong side."
Jack Heslin of Leitrim reacts during the Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship quarter-final match between New York and Leitrim at Gaelic Park in New York, USA. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile.
Leitrim’s defeat to New York was in no way down to taking their opponents for granted.
Maguire was keenly aware they had a very strong team and he and his team-mates prepared for the task diligently.
“That was my third time playing over there and it wasn’t a team they’d thrown together in the last few weeks. I know maybe Eoghan Kerin might have gone out three or four weeks before the game, but they were really well prepared and organised and really targeted it.
“We knew that, we knew we had to bring our A game and after the league finished up we didn't get a lot of time to. There was two weeks, we got two runs on an astroturf pitch and a lot of lads cramped up that day, so we probably needed more time after the league finished.
“We had a quick turnaround and were playing eight days later, so that probably came into the picture too on why we didn’t get over the line. We created a lot of chances, New York had a decent team and on paper when you saw it, you were thinking ‘these boys mean business.’
“As the game went on they kept digging deep and there was only a point or two in it, and I knew when we didn’t take our goal chances they would go to the very end and they came out the right side of it. Unfortunately we took the loss, but like any game there’s more important things in life and we got over it, and we’ll look forward to the Tailteann Cup.”
Now in his 13th season as an inter-county footballer, Maguire joined an elite club of players to have represented their county 100 times when Leitrim defeated Carlow in the League this year.
Paddy Maguire pictured with members of his family after making his 100th appearance for Leitrim when they defeated Carlow in this year's Allianz Football League.
He has soldiered away in good times and bad, and believes a competition like the Tailteann Cup that guarantees competitive matches and the chance of silverware for a county like Leitrim will encourage other players to give the same sort of dedication.
“You put in as much work as any other county team and you miss out on a lot of personal things at home with friends and that, but I just enjoy it so much that I don’t feel I’ll have any regrets,” says Maguire of the commitment he has given to Leitrim football.
“I have made great friends over the years, we had so many games over the years going up and down the country in league and championship and I think I’ll always look back on it with great memories.
“I never thought I was wasting my time here, I always enjoyed it and the people of Leitrim are great. I always got great satisfaction, we got some good wins there at home in the league and in the qualifiers.
“I know we got some hammerings, but as I said before there’s more important things in life. This tier two now will make up for that a lot with these young players, and that appetite to play for your county.
“The Tailteann cup can really bring a team together and going forward to next year it’ll keep players and teams together because they have a second option and they won’t have that fear of being beaten by a division one or two team in a qualifier.
“That went on for a while in my career where we got right hammerings and it can be very disappointing and morale is not great.
“Every year I go away with the club and come back refreshed and I think that’s what kept me going and I was lucky enough not to pick up any injuries and that has kept me going and it’s a great commitment for a great cause. I love playing for Leitrim. I enjoy it so much so that’s why I keep going.”
He's making no long-term plans beyond this Tailteann Cup campaign, and you can sense it represents a huge opportunity for this group of Leitrim players.
They believe they can give it a good rattle, and the prospect of a minimum of three championship matches at the height of summer has galvanised the group after the disappointment of that defeat to New York.
“It definitely has,” says Maguire. “Last year I think losing to Sligo by the minimum everyone is looking forward again and after losing to New York it would have been an early exit from the championship if you ran into a heavyweight qualifier. And that would have been an awful year for a young team like this young Leitrim team.
“The Tailteann Cup, the beauty of it is it’s a good group there and any team has a chance of beating each other. We have played Wexford a few times and it’s been win, lose with them and we are evenly matched I think. There’s Antrim as well and a home game against Fermanagh…whoever is hungrier on the day will take it.”
