Dolan optimistic despite Leitrim's injury woes

Dessie Dolan has announced his first championship team as Leitrim football manager, and when he describes a trio of injured players as "major, major losses" he's not exaggerating. Such is the unbearable lightness of being Leitrim.

The famous father of Westmeath's famous footballing son has been making the journey northwest for just over six months now, and has seen for himself the limits of Leitrim's resources.

But what's missing in numbers is made up for in attitude, and Dolan is calmly optimistic about Sunday's Connacht championship quarter-final against Sligo.

Donal Brennan, Declan Gilhooley and Kieran Duignan are the three casualties, depriving Dolan of precious options in the forward line.

Brennan will be out for another six weeks at least having dislocated his shoulder in a recent challenge match against Dublin, and yet Dolan is determined to get the best out of what he has.

"I had to try a rebuild the team a little after Declan Rowley," he says. "He'd been there for three years, and a few players did retire when he left, the likes of Séamus Quinn, a former All Star. They're difficult players to replace, so basically that's what we've been trying to do during the league.

"And the truth is I didn't know anything about Leitrim football before this year. I'm a Westmeath man living in Athlone, and I came up here knowing absolutely nothing about any of the players. I was depending a lot on my selectors, Declan Bohan and Pat Prior, to give me a hand just to put a panel together.

"That was our starting point, but this year I've been going to quite a few club games in Leitrim for the first time, and seen a few players that I liked, and hopefully they'll all come into the panel in the future."

Dolan has kept the backbone of last year's team, which surprised quite a few people when drawing with Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final, before losing in the replay.

He gives a championship debut to goalkeeper Cathal McCrann, who is only 19, as well as Barry McWeeney at centre back, and Dolan is optimistic about the quality of players coming through.

"You have to be. When it comes to a county like Leitrim you have to be a super-optimist.

"I'm working off a population of around 22,000, and there are more people in and around Athlone than there are the whole county of Leitrim.

"There are 12 under-21 players on this panel, so it is relatively young team. I'd be happy enough with what we got in the league, but there were a couple of games where I felt we should have got more.

"Against Fermanagh I thought we were unlucky, and we lost to Carlow when I felt we shouldn't have, and then against Longford we got a draw when we could have won the thing just as easily.

"Monaghan gave us a hammering, simple as that, but they've got some lively footballers such as Tomás Freeman in the forward line."

Sligo endured a series of horrendous beatings in the league, but Dolan doesn't believe that makes then anything less than a daunting challenge for a team like Leitrim: "They're coming off Division One football, and we're coming off Division Two. You have to be realistic, because it's like putting a Mercedes against a Mini, there has to be some difference.

"But I'm not nervous about it. Not a bit. I've always enjoyed being involved, and even as a player I never got nervous. The bigger the game the better the occasion."

LEITRIM (SF v Sligo): C McCrann; D Reynolds, J McKeon, M McGuinness; N Gilbane, B McWeeney, S Foley; C Carroll, G McCloskey; J Goldrick, B Prior, M Foley; J Glancy, C Regan, D Maxwell.