Leitrim are raring to go - at last

Ian O'Riordan talks to Leitrim manager Dessie Dolan ahead of Sunday's clash with Mayo

Eleven weeks after their last competitive game, when six teams have already been eliminated from the football championship and most have played two games already, the long wait has ended for Leitrim. They'll meet Mayo in Sunday's Connacht semi-final in Carrick-on-Shannon as the last team to enter the championship, and the last team anyone expects to progress very far.

Leitrim show their faces around this time every summer just when the rest of the country has practically forgotten them. They're not expected to get past Mayo on Sunday, but they weren't expected to beat Sligo in last year's quarter-final (which they did) or beat Meath in the qualifiers (which they very nearly did, before losing in extra-time).

Dessie Dolan - the famous father of Westmeath's famous football son - is now in his second year as manager and while the enforced hiatus since the end of the league has been far from ideal, it hasn't been without some advantages.

"Obviously the long delay has been a problem," says Dolan. "It's actually been quite boring at times. The only positive thing is that the few injuries we had have cleared up, especially Declan Maxwell, who had a knee cartilage injury but is now fit to play. But it has dragged on. Most teams have had a couple of games already, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But the simple fact is we got a bye into the semi-final so there's nothing we could do about that."

Dolan has also made use of the time by taking Leitrim on the now compulsory team-bonding trip. Leitrim spent a few days at the Temple Spa in Horseleap, outside of Moate.

"It's actually a fantastic resort," adds Dolan, "and as good a place as any to do some team bonding. And I think we have strengthened the panel a little bit, but the most important thing is I've got to know the players a lot better. Last year I was thrown in at the deep end a little bit and had to rely more on the selectors to find the players, but I've been to a lot more club games this year. We've also been working with the under-21 team and brought in a few of those players.

"But Mayo are one of the top five or six teams in the country. They have ambitions of making an All-Ireland final, we have ambitions to make a Connacht final. So it's much more of a once-off game for us, and we'll be hoping to prove that when it comes to the championship anything can happen on the day."

When it comes to championship football there is an unbearable lightness of being Leitrim. The team do most of their training at Longford rugby club, and in terms of numbers they'll always be well short of the rest. "Someone just told me recently that Leitrim has about 3,000 people right now between the age of 18 and 32. And that I'm selecting the county panel from a pool of around 200 players. I don't know how accurate those figures are, but they are the kind of small numbers we're dealing with in Leitrim.

"But I've come across some excellent players, we just wouldn't have anything like the quantity of them that other counties have. And if anything, the commitment is even greater than the stronger counties, because it has to be.

"We literally have players coming from all over the country to train with us. From Belmullet, Ennis, Waterford, and places like that. One of our players, Colin Regan, is based in Letterkenny. I remember a while back he was on his way to training when he rang to say it was snowing, maybe an inch of it on the roads. I told him to turn back, not to take the chance, but he was determined to make it. That just shows the commitment of this panel."