New York planning big surprise for Leitrim in Big Apple

They are the outpost of all outposts. Always first on the championship train, with the implicit understanding that they will always be the first off it too. For the 20th year in a row, the summer starts in Gaelic Park in the Bronx, with New York hosting Leitrim this Sunday.

Tradition demands they play the role of obliging hosts, maybe even giving their visitors a damn good scare before ultimately standing to one side and letting the lads from home get on with their business. Which would lead anyone to wonder, quite reasonably, what exactly is in it for them?

"I'm not really sure why I keep at it, to be honest," says Keith Scally, the Westmeath player who landed in New York six years ago and has played in every game since 2013.

“Every year at the end of it I say this is the last year. But I think it’s just the draw of being hopefully on the first team ever to win a game, that’s probably it. It would be something really special to be on the first team to win a game over here.

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“It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, there’s a belief every year that we can win. It’s the belief that gets you through the training for that four-month block. If you didn’t believe, it would be kind of hard to keep coming up to Gaelic Park. Leitrim are the team you’d be kind of focusing on as your best chance in Connacht to get an upset. It’s a great group of lads together this year who do believe that we can do it.”

They’re not the only ones.

New York have never gone into a Connacht championship game carrying slimmer odds than the 11/8 generally available about them to turn Leitrim over.

The presence of a handful of confirmed inter-county stalwarts – chief among them Jamie Clarke but also Mayo's Tom Cunniffe, Dalton McDonagh of Meath and Roscommon's Neil Collins – clearly plays into this.

As does Leitrim's underwhelming Division Four campaign in which they lost their opening three games, gave London a walkover and saw their game against Waterford cancelled altogether. Even with star forward Emlyn Mulligan back in harness after missing last year with a cruciate injury, it's no slander to say Leitrim look as ripe for the picking as any visiting team has ever done in pitching up at Gaelic Park.

Challenge match

A recent challenge match victory over Corofin has been invaluable, according to New York manager Justin O’Halloran.

“In Gaelic Park, I wouldn’t say we were getting up to championship speed,” he says. “We were playing in-house games but it was going stale with the same lads marking each other and whatever else. So the game against Corofin revamped the whole thing really. We got a lot out of it.

“We met up at the end of November for a couple of sessions initially and then gave the lads programmes over Christmas. After that, we started back in January and have met up a few nights a week since then. The weather over here has been cold but we actually didn’t get as much snow as in other years so we were still able to train away. To be honest, it’s not that hard a sell. Lads have wanted to do it and have committed to it and have enjoyed it.”

Can it happen?

Well, put it this way – it won’t be as seismic a shock as it is likely to be painted if it does. O’Halloran has better players at his disposal than when his side frightened the life out of Roscommon two years ago and Leitrim are no Roscommon. As against that, there’s no surprise factor at play here – Leitrim are heading Stateside well-warned.

“Personally, it would be my best day on a football field ever,” says O’Halloran, who played in that first game 20 season ago. “I know for a few of the lads, they would have had bigger days at home. But as a group together, it would be absolutely huge.

“It would be a tribute to the work everyone has put in since November. I know teams are putting in all the work at home as well but they have games at the end of it. When you have no National League and no challenge games, it’s harder to put it in. A win would be huge.”