The ins and outs of why Leitrim forfeited their Division 3 match against Fermanagh at the weekend will be teased out beyond the detailed statement issued on Saturday. In brief, they chose – or were asked – to rest six under-20 players before their Connacht championship match against Galway on Wednesday, which, they said, left them with just 13 fit players – although the exact number of available players has not rested easily on 13.
All of this didn’t come entirely out of the blue. A fortnight ago, only 22 players had togged out for their home league game against Offaly, including the six players who were also on the under-20 panel. The threadbare nature of the squad was a source of conversation after their four-point defeat that day, which, ironically, was their best performance of a wretched league campaign.
“We named 22 today and that wasn’t some sort of statement,” said Leitrim manager Stephen Poacher. “Nobody’s left the panel. Nobody’s walked away or anything like that, that’s all the players that were fit.
“There are 14, 15 lads who’ve never played senior county football before so they’re getting exposed to a training load that they’ve never had. They’re getting exposed to a higher level of intensity in these games as well. They’re running harder, they’re running further and they’re breaking down. The reason they’re breaking down is because they haven’t had a proper preseason.”
The claim that the Leitrim players didn’t have a proper preseason might seem strange when Poacher was appointed on October 26th, six weeks before intercounty teams were permitted to return to collective training and three months before their first league match. What it reflects, however, is the scarcely concealed reality: every intercounty squad is weeks into a preseason programme by the end of October.
Andy Moran’s departure at the end of last summer’s championship was followed by Mickey Graham jumping ship to Galway only weeks after he was appointed. On top of that, Poacher inherited a squad that was in a debilitating state of flux. For one reason or another, 20 players from last year’s panel have not returned.
According to an interview Poacher did over the weekend, Leitrim had “13 fully-fit players and probably 16 players available in total,” but he said that number didn’t include any goalkeepers. In that 16, he said, “you had three or four lads that are coming back from long-term injuries.” Leaning on those players to fulfil a fixture would have been “an act of negligence,” Poacher said.
There was no indication in the original statement that the senior management had been asked to rest the under-20 players, but it is easy to make that deduction from Poacher’s remarks. “We have six under-20 players and, respecting their Connacht championship match on Wednesday night, they weren’t available to play on Sunday. That news came to us very late on Friday.”
The restrictions around under-20 players lining out for senior teams were eased at Congress in 2024. Cork brought a proposal to reduce the seven-day window to 60 hours and, as it happens, the Leitrim secretary Declan Bohan was the first delegate to speak in favour after Kevin O’Donovan had moved the motion. Among other things, that rule change was intended to help counties with shallow talent pools, such as Leitrim.
Very few counties, though, would have as many as six under-20s in their senior squad; in the higher tiers the numbers would typically be one or two. Further down the food chain the numbers are queered by different dynamics.
Why did so many players disengage from the Leitrim squad over the winter? It would be more pertinent to wonder why they would stay. In the last five years, Leitrim have only registered one win in the Connacht championship, against London. In the other years they were beaten by New York on penalties, lost to Galway by 24 points, Mayo by 23 points and Sligo by nine.
In the three years of the Tailteann Cup’s existence Leitrim haven’t progressed beyond the quarter-finals. When the GAA finally grasps the imperative of a third tier in the football championship that will be Leitrim’s level.
They did really well to win promotion from Division 4 last year but took a hiding from Laois in the league final in Croke Park. Their prize for promotion, though, was to land in a division where they were out of their depth. Before the Offaly match, they had lost their four previous league games by an average of 18 points. How many of the players who opted out for this season could see the suffering that was coming down the tracks?
In every intercounty squad there is churn. The GPA says their membership changes by between 20 and 30 per cent each season. In the counties with no realistic chance of success, though, the turnover is greater. Between teams in Division 1 and Division 4 the toll on players in terms of time and energy is not in proportion to their prospect of glory. The dividend, though, is smaller.
As the lives of intercounty players became more cluttered by the demands of being an elite amateur athlete, the triangular relationship between honour, sacrifice and justification has become increasingly tricky. In blunt terms, a study conducted by Indecon on behalf of the GPA calculated that players were €4,602 out of pocket each year by committing to a county panel. That figure takes no account of the emotional and physical deductions.
“Is the juice worth the squeeze?” Kildare player Daniel Flynn once asked.
Twenty years ago, most intercounty players would never have asked that question. What happened with Leitrim at the weekend is the symptom of a much greater ill.
