Leitrim 2014 - all matters of relevance here.

Indeed that pic is of Niall and not mark. Surprised at you Boxty.

But it fitted in nicely (sic). I know, I know.....I'm getting my coat...

18th May not far away now. Where would you play wrynn at summer. Would leave Egan out, think he got injured at weekend anyway. Hear Hagan has a man lined up for Kilbride. Neither of those mentioned. Half back would be a worry for me. Shine, O'Gara and Clegg is a formidable line and our half back line has been seriously exposed last few games. McKeon is great going forward but defensively is lacking. Similarly Prior and Reynolds.

Leitrim defeated Sligo in a recent challenge what was the score?

Conflicting reports, suffice to say somewhere about 18 points to 14 or thereabouts.

The 18 pints are attainable tonight I'd say below in the Slieve Russell, as popular if injured Mossy Beirne has tied the knot with local sweetheart Melissa Stenson. Hi-jinx to be the order of the weekend.....

All Ireland drama (fresh from Dean Crowe Hall, Athlone) *

Carrigallen, of all clubs, brought home the drama award.....

Búladh bos Carrig ar Ailéén....

Mae focail scoir, tabhart liomh an fear is fír as an paróiste, Seamus Ui Ruiarce..

This is Carrigalens' finest, the intreipid Seamus O'Rourke. I'm waiting, coyly, in the bushes, per se, before they accredit him with an accreditation...

What way would you line out Sunday Boxty. Leave yourself out

johnnos bulls wrote:What way would you line out Sunday Boxty. Leave yourself out

I lined out in a Fenagh polo shirt, new shorts (Sportsdirect.com) and runners. It was about 30 degrees, so I limped into Patrick's Bar in Maspalomas and pleaded a hamstring pull.

In other, more relevant news, it's comforting when Fenagh's rotund and florid faced Councillor retains his seat with ease in the local elections. Bonfires tonight in the historic village.....

Looks like he fair knows his way round a fish supper & a bottle of Merlot boxty!

On return from a junket to Iceland some years ago to look at incinerators he loudly condemnned all forms of beef. He informed a pub-full of local yokels that "fookin' reindeer steaks are the future".

The Dauber calmly asked if he thought he'd be able for a whole reindeer.....

Leitrim, in the presence of the Ballinamore electoral area, are the nations champions for voting, with a remarkable 72% turnout in the local elections as the national trend hovers about 50%.

The intrepid local councillor retained his seat with a margin of comfort....

Boxtyeater wrote:Conflicting reports, suffice to say somewhere about 18 points to 14 or thereabouts.

The 18 pints are attainable tonight I'd say below in the Slieve Russell, as popular if injured Mossy Beirne has tied the knot with local sweetheart Melissa Stenson. Hi-jinx to be the order of the weekend.....

Great that our boys can go for pints two weeks before championship

Incredible news.....There was I assuming he was the shy, retiring, introverted, number-crunching geek...

Hold on.....wrong one. Looking prosperous no doubt.

Former Melvin Gaels and Inter-County stalwart Colin Regan, pulls no punches when analysing the malaise that is in currently Leitrim football:


Twelve months ago I was writing from New York about a Leitrim performance that set the side up for a Connacht semi-final against the winners of Sligo and London.


Everything appeared to be going relatively well for the squad and management. True, the league had proven disappointing with the side’s hopes of promotion dashed relatively early in the campaign, but the FBD victory suggested the side had the capacity to put a string of victories together.

I’m back in New York a year later wondering what to write about following the side’s demolition by Down in the Qualifiers. I jumped online a little earlier to see the result and to be honest it didn’t surprise me. The last thing I said to a GAA colleague when he asked me if we could run them close was that I felt sorry for the lads who were making the trip, that Leitrim football was at its lowest ebb since my time watching or playing for the county.

It would be easy but foolish to talk about all the missing players and the gulf between Division 4 and Division 1. That would be missing the point completely.

The state of Leitrim football and the reason the lads suffered such a drubbing in the back door system for the second year running lie much deeper that such superficial issues.

The problem rests in the attitude too many players in Leitrim have towards the Leitrim jersey and their sport in general. Firstly, there are too many players unwilling to make themselves available to play county football. Secondly, there are those who are on the panel who are there not for the team, but for themselves.

Whether it is the commitment they fear or the effort and sacrifice, I am not sure. For sure, it requires a great deal of all three attributes. However, the rewards – if everyone is together and united and working for each other as a team and not as individuals – greatly out-weight what you put into it. But only if you give it your all and don’t just do it for what you want to get out of it.

This is the vicious circle Leitrim football has found itself in. Too many players find the challenge of inter-county football unfulfilling in itself because they are doing it half-hearted and don’t achieve the sort of self-actualisation a fully committed experience can offer.

This sets in motion a series of actions that doom the panel to failure. Number one – it releases a poison into the panel that infects everyone. The most committed of players begin to question why they are giving their all when everyone else isn’t.

The younger lads who just come onto the panel full of enthusiasm and hope and limitless aspirations find themselves confused by the dichotomy of behaviour they witness and the divisive culture they find themselves in. Some rage against it and try to change it, others succumb to it and fall by the wayside.

Older members question why they should continue to give the necessary sacrifice at this stage of their lives and drop themselves off the panel despite the fact they have more years to offer. And so that essential link with experience is lost, as is the potential passing of wisdom down through the generations.

The cancer doesn’t stop there. It reaches outside even the panel to the body of clubs who feed the county scene. Results like Sunday’s seep deep into the conscious of all potential future Leitrim footballers. Those club players who display all the potential for higher-level combat hear of the malaise and see the factitious nature of the inter-county panel and opt not to make themselves available.

And who would blame them? To commit to that life you must know all is well, for the road is hard. The only way to reach a fulfilling destination is as part of a pack that is pulling together. It’s quite primal really.

What Barney Breen and George Dugdale tried to put in place last year was an understanding of what was required to achieve this. Here is where we are, here is what we want to achieve, here it what we must do to achieve this. It’s quite a simple formula when you look at it like that. Remember, they didn’t impose this on anyone, the players themselves drew up the group contract, created it and signed up to it.

They were not looking at some short goal – a potential Connacht final appearance for example. They were looking at putting in place foundations of attitude and behaviours from which a culture of passion, and commitment, and integrity, and cohesion could be built throughout which the common good always prevailed over self-interest.

These are not easy things to do. Changing a culture is one of the most difficult things to do in a society. It causes great fractures occasionally and lots of collateral damage as those agents of the existing culture rage against the change. They may not understand it or they may fear change inherently, or most damagingly they may see their inability to adjust their ways to conform to the required new way of thinking and acting.

To achieve such a new state and understanding the agents of change must also find support in the surrounding environment – in Leitrim’s case the supporters and the clubs and the county board. Unfortunately, while many saw what George and Barney were trying to achieve, too many failed to see the bigger picture.

Instead they looked at the short term impact (no big day out in a Connacht final) and opted to personalise the situation. They forced a change in management that would ironically ensure that no change in the problematic culture would happen at all.

And that is the situation and the culture that Sean Hagan and his management team inherited this year and that is why we find ourselves in the exact same situation as we did twelve months ago. To keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is the definition of madness.

My thoughts are with those lads who gave it their all for Leitrim this year, not just on the training field or on the field of play, but in their hearts and their thoughts and their actions when they were far from the management’s or supporters’ watching eyes.

I feel sorry for them, many of them good friends of mine, others I barely know. I feel sorry for them because their efforts were wasted. Not because they lost to Down – for you can lose any game and still emerge a winner – but because they were left to play as individuals in a team sport. And that should never happen.

Liatroim abu.

The Rúnai of the County Board intends to hoist the white flag it seems. With clowns like this pessimist at the top, is it any wonder we are at the bottom....20 years ago we were Kings of Connacht, who says we can't get the show on the road again on the back of decent showings at U-21 and Minor this year. These lads from Manorhamilton (D.Sweeney) were the very ones that induced Mickey Moran and partner onto the scene in the first place and we know now where that combo got us. We should have gone for Foster and Allen FFS.

From last week's Observer:

Leitrim County Board secretary Diarmuid Sweeney says they would be better off competing at junior level on the inter-county stage.
Just two days after their 0-9 to 4-18 qualifier humiliation at the hands of Down in Newry, Sweeney said to the Examiner: "We can't expect to keep taking hammerings like Sunday".

"Under the current system, there is always going to be a gap between teams and it is only going to grow as time goes on.

"There is talk of entering Leitrim in the Junior Championship and forgetting about Senior status. It would be a big move. Consideration needs to be given to that and the question needs to be asked 'would Leitrim be better served in the junior championship'.

"The Junior Championship can be competitive and maybe that is the level we are at.

"We got to the Junior Connacht Final this year with a stand-alone Junior team and had we the Senior boys involved, we could have gone further and had a good run for the All-Ireland, playing at a level where we really are at."

The Connacht county's secretary added: "I wouldn't like us to reach the stage where we don't enter like Kilkenny did.

"In the absence of a B Championship at Senior level, we just focus on the Junior. That would allow us to build for a period of time until we are able to compete further up the ladder.

"There needs to be a sit-down about this, the same for the counties who are in a similar position to us. For certain counties, defeat is inevitable each year. It can't continue."

Maybe need to recall a former work colleague of Omar's ( Tommy M)

OMAR wrote:Maybe need to recall a former work colleague of Omar's ( Tommy M)

You've lost me here bro.....On another note, did you know a guy called Brendan Dwyer in your time there?
Shuffled bits of paper around the desks from what I'd imagine.

Boxtyeater wrote:

OMAR wrote:Maybe need to recall a former work colleague of Omar's ( Tommy M)

You've lost me here bro.....On another note, did you know a guy called Brendan Dwyer in your time there?
Shuffled bits of paper around the desks from what I'd imagine.

Where did you soldier with the great man - I'm assuming this is the Tommy M you're talking about....

If Leitrim are looking to improve in the years ahead the first thing they need to do is sack that County Board secretary Diarmuid Sweeney. First target for the Leitrim seniors next year should be promotion to div 3 and that would have been archived this year but for the shock result against Waterford. As the above Colm Regan piece claims clearly the attitude is a serious problem and if you lose by over 10 points in any game its totally down to you giving up and rolling over.

If Tipp,Clare two hurling counties can improve in football sure as hell Leitrim can also.

Boxtyeater wrote:

Boxtyeater wrote:

OMAR wrote:Maybe need to recall a former work colleague of Omar's ( Tommy M)

You've lost me here bro.....On another note, did you know a guy called Brendan Dwyer in your time there?
Shuffled bits of paper around the desks from what I'd imagine.

Where did you soldier with the great man - I'm assuming this is the Tommy M you're talking about....

wa


That's him - worked with him when he was semi retired - we had a network of people that were "sources of local knowledge " TM was our man in Leitrim - we had former AI winning dublin half back for west dublin and a good few retired flat foots etc. etc.

He used to send me the odd brace of TKTs for clones - the good ones beside Adams or McGuinness with ground parking included - gentleman

Probably the best known and popular Leitrim man living in the County. You won't find anybody with a bad word to say about him. A wicked sense of humour on him. Administrator, referee, teacher, actor, MC, quiz-legend, organiser, story-teller, singer and when the occasion demands a sh1t-stirrer of epic proportions.

Twenty years ago tomorrow we were Kings of Connacht and ultimatley in the last three. Where have the 20 years flown, where are we now....On a poignant note, a 1st. cousin of mine leapt on my back at the final whistle, practically strangling me with a scarf that I treasure to this day. Tonight, he's had his 3rd. operation  - in 8 hour stints on a brain tumour (24 hours of rooting on your brain?). He's 60 and the vibes are positive. Here's hoping, but there's a contextual issue under-pinning it all.

The decline in county fortunes is directly related to the decline in the fortunes of the Fenagh club....  

It's a poor reflection of where we/ye, as a board, are at when the internet world is buzzing with scenes from 20 years ago. An Aughawillian legend of the "era" (One must be careful) has avised me to "Cool the Jets" in a completely non-authoritarian voice.

Ye're on the wrong Forum.