Longford minors manager McGahern disappointed with the end to glorious campaign

After the County minors campaign ended with the defeat against Armagh, the Longford manager Enda McGahern admitted that despite a successful year being crowned Leinster champions, they just did not turn up at Kingspan Breffni Park for their All-Ireland quarter-final on Saturday last. 

“No, it has ended and we are disappointed with the way it finished. We just did not perform on the day. You accept a beating any day when you perform well and come up short, but today we just did not reach the standards that we had set all year, and that is the most disappointing aspect.”

When asked if the team found it hard to come down from the high of winning the Leinster final in a glorious campaign and were not able to focus on the Armagh game as a result, Enda disagreed.

“I do not think so, that was three weeks ago and we had time to enjoy that success for the first week, but then we knuckled down and set out our new objectives and parked the Leinster title triumph. 

“We treated the All-Ireland series as a new competition and we just focused on the Armagh game. We produced a game plan and looked a lot at the opposition during our preparations, but sometimes things just go wrong on the day and it is very hard to put our fingers on exactly where it went wrong.”

Approaching half-time, Longford trailed by just two points but then suffered a crucial blow when Wilson and O’Rourke set up Loughran for a goal for Armagh to give them a five-point cushion at the break. Enda explained how they reacted to that goal.

“It was a big blow, but with the half-time break coming immediately, it gave us a chance to address it at the interval. We have been in those positions before and have come back to win, so we reminded the lads of that, and we just asked them to push up on Armagh and force them to make mistakes. 

“We still had time at that stage to come back into the game like before and fix things, but it was far from ideal conceding so late in the first half.”

After the comeback victories over Louth in the provincial semi-final and again in the clash against Dublin in the Leinster final, I put it to Enda that the confidence must have been there to believe that another comeback victory could be achieved.

“Absolutely, we did not panic in those games and no matter what situation we found ourselves in, we always had control and composure and the confidence and belief in ourselves to succeed, but for whatever reason nothing went right for us today, so maybe we just ran out of lives in the end.”

Longford went a point up after sixteen minutes when a Joshua Marsh shot was blocked but Luke Donnelly pounced to blast the ball to the Armagh net. However, Longford failed to score again for 35 minutes, registering just a single point in the second half, and Enda was disappointed with their lack of scoring.

“It just did not happen for us; we did not get any breaks after scoring that goal. There was a great Longford crowd here and we just did not give them anything to shout about. 

“We tried to get the lads into the game and create chances, especially in the second half. Our supporters tried to cheer us on and they were excellent in how they tried to lift the players and hats off to them, it is a pity we could not perform better on the day for them.”

Enda, while disappointed with their defeat, expressed his pride with the team on winning a Leinster title at minor level, especially as they do not come around too often (1929,1938, 2002 & 2010 the previous four triumphs).

“It is a great achievement but we have not reflected too much on it just yet, as we were focused on trying to take this Longford team further than any other Longford team had gone. While it is brilliant to have won a Leinster title, it is disappointing that we did not push on a little bit further.”