THERE’S a bit of bite in the training game and you’d expect that a few days out from a Championship final against mighty Galway. You’d need that.
It’s like a GAA Sham fight tribute as the men in green bibs battle the men in orange. The handling is crisp, the movement is meaningful, the pace is flat-out and full-blooded tackles keep the boys on the ball honest.
They're playing for their places and right in the middle of it all is Sligo manager Tony McEntee. All in black with the hood of his coat up and his hands in his pockets, he watches from the middle of the field.
“Go on Lally, go on boy… Ah brilliant Lally,” roars one of the players as Sligo’s midfielder Niall Lally slots over a point for the greens.
As the orange bibs go on the attack one of the coaches spots me lurking on the sideline.
“Ye must be a Galway man, are ye?” he shouts across.
“No, no. I’m not a spy!” I protest.
He replies, smiling: “Ye’d have been turfed out long ago if we thought ye were.”
‘Tony Mac’ had them well warned I was coming down to watch the team prepare for their first Connacht final in eight years.
“You found it anyway,” says McEntee when he gets a minute to come and say hello.
I did but it was quite a trek. Mile after mile through Monaghan and around Cavan’s lakes and on into the West along quiet stonewall-lined winding roads through little towns I’d never heard of. Eventually, on the other side of Ballyhaunis, I came over the brow of a hill and there below me was a gleaming white dome that looked like it belonged in a NASA compound.
Surrounded by football pitches, it could only be the superb Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence which Sligo have used for training all year.
It has worked well for them.
Since losing their League opener against Laois, the Yeatsmen have won nine games in-a-row including the Division Four final and Championship games against London and New York.
They’ve reached the top of their ladder and are ready to jump to the next one. How far up or down they will start on it will be determined by their performance in Castlebar on Sunday.
Who gives Sligo a chance against Galway? Nobody but don’t tell them that.
“We’re very positive about it, but we’re a very positive team anyhow,” says McEntee.
“Most teams don’t get nine wins in-a-row and while they have been against Division Four teams it has been a brilliant way to develop a winning attitude and mentality amongst the team and we’re bringing that into the weekend.
“We had a target of going up as champions which meant we had to win six games so after we got beat by Laois in the first game, every game since has been a knockout game. In essence we’ve had nine knockout games in-a-row so the pressure has been building slowly but it has been managed so far by the players.”
THE leader of those players is the experienced Niall Murphy at top-of-the-left. A veteran of 11 seasons for his county, Sligo reached the Connacht final in his first year on the panel (2012) and he expected to be there or thereabouts regularly in the coming years.
It hasn’t worked out like that.
The year before McEntee was appointed manager (2020) Sligo finished third-from-bottom in Division Four, just above Waterford and London. An outbreak of Coronavirus in the squad later that year meant they became the first county ever to concede a Championship game.
From that low point there has been steady progress under McEntee, an All-Ireland winner with club (as player and manager) and county, and the rebuilding work bore fruit this year with the Division Four title and now a Connacht final. Whatever happens on Sunday, they're in the Sam Maguire series.
“Tony has that wee bit of arrogance from being on winning teams and he has definitely brought that to us,” says Murphy.
“He has instilled that into us, he has brought a bit of belief to us and a bit of bite and grit. He’s very good at speaking to the group and sussing out where the group is at and understanding what lads need and he has a good team around him as well.”
Sligo lost by two points in the 2012 decider but were slaughtered by Mayo in their most recent Connacht final appearance (2015). Murphy says the Yeatsmen are “going into the unknown” because they don’t actually know how good they are. Beating Division Four sides is one thing, taking on Shane Walsh, Damien Comer and Paul Conroy and the rest is another.
“We haven’t been playing teams at Galway’s level,” he said.
“But we set out at the start of the year to get here and we’re here now and we want to perform. God knows where we’re at. We haven’t competed against this level of team this year but we’re going in with confidence and we’ll try and stifle them as much as we can.
“We’ve done whatever we can do and we’ll give it a right rattle.”
SLIGO gave Galway a “right rattle” in the 2007 Connacht final and that was good enough. Noel McGuire, now part of the management team, was captain that day and is the last Sligo skipper (there have only been three) to get his hands on the JJ Nestor Cup.
Easkey clubman McGuire marked Padraic Joyce, now manager of the Tribesmen, back then and his old sparring partner took the Tribesmen to the All-Ireland final last year and the National League final this season.
“We have a good group of lads,” said McGuire nodding towards the training going on behind him.
“They’re dedicated and they’re well prepared. Galway are a big step up but we’re looking forward to the challenge. We feel with this current team and the minors and the U20s that are coming that this is hopefully the start of some good, productive years ahead.
“Galway have household names and rightly so because they’ve proved themselves over the last number of years. They’ve been at the top and they’ve a lot of stature and quality and it’s great to be in a position to test ourselves against them.”
McGUIRE brings a wealth of local knowledge to the camp but McEntee hasn’t been afraid to go outside the county bring in expertise.
Well, strictly-speaking goalkeeping coach Paul Durcan is from inside the county, he lives near Sligo Town now having relocated from his native Ballyshannon a few years ago.
There are white flecks in that pirate’s beard of his these days but the Donegal All-Ireland winner can still strike a ball with the best of them.
As the players practice frees, Durcan can’t contain himself and he steps out and hits one himself. As the ball curls delightfully over the bar ‘Papa’ turns with a beaming smile that says: ‘That’s how you do it lads’.
“You’ve still got it Paul,” I tell him.
“Oh aye,” he replies with a shrug of his shoulders.
He joined the set-up when McEntee took over as manager and is revelling in the excitement of being involved in a provincial final once again.
“There’s nothing like that buzz,” he says.
“In fairness the boys have worked hard this last three years. Tony has been excellent to work with, he’s very professional and there’s Joe (Keane) and Noel as well and now Colm (McFadden) has come in.”
McFadden was of course Durcan’s team-mate on the ground-breaking Donegal side that won the All-Ireland in 2012. The Creeslough native has been working as the forwards’ coach this year and Sean Carrabine, Niall Murphy and Pat Spillane are among those who are benefitting from his input.
“I’m not taking the blame for him coming!” jokes Durcan.
“No, in fairness I was lucky enough to play with Colm for a long time so I recommended him. I had heard a lot of good things about him up at home so it was an easy one but it’s a hard one for him because he has a fair distance to travel but he has been very good for the lads.
“They’re all scoring well and he has been a big help, scoring has gone up massively compared to last year (just over 18 points a game) so it’s good.”
Like his colleagues you sense a few nerves. Sligo are working hard but will their best be enough to keep them in the game against a Galway side that has genuine aspirations to win the Sam Maguire? Only Sunday will tell.
“We’re going up against one of the best teams in the country so it’s going to be a tough day out but I think the boys are looking forward to it,” says Durcan.
“We need to show exactly what we’ve been doing for the last three years’, go out and show the work that they’ve done behind the scenes – the work they’ve done with the strength and conditioning boy Sean Boyle has been immense.
“They need to enjoy it and if they show the work they’ve done then… who knows?”
THESE are good times for Sligo football. On the next pitch, the county’s U20 panel is training for an All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry. The Sligo minors have done well and the county’s schools have had success so the wheels are in motion in the Yeats County.
As the training game continues out on the field one of the lads in the green team has to sit out for a few minutes. He hops up on the fence near where I’m standing.
“We just want to get on with it (the final) now,” he says and adds: “What are ye at anyway?”
I tell him I’m there to do a story on him and his team which, by the way, would be impossible in most other counties.
“Make sure you give Evan Lyons a mention,” he says as he jumps back down and re-joins the session.
He’ll wear number two on Sunday and could be up against Comer, Walsh or Ian Burke.
It’ll be a hard day’s work for him and long day for the kitman Aidan Carty. He drives the van, he packs the balls and the cones and the jerseys… He has them laid out when the team arrives and he collects it all after the boys have boarded the bus.
It’s a labour of love for ‘Scoop’.
“I enjoy the craic,” he says.
“It’s busy. When they train, you train. You’re away most nights of the week and you’re first here and last to leave. If I’m late, I’m in trouble so I can’t be late! But it’s rewarding, I know the lads and we have good craic.”
Scoop was in the Sligo squad, the substitute goalkeeper, when the Yeatsmen had a ding-dong double-header against Armagh in the 2002 All-Ireland quarter-final. The first match finished in a draw at Croke Park and Armagh, with Tony McEntee among the subs, got over the line by two points in the replay in Navan.
The Orchardmen went on to win the Sam Maguire that year and Sligo were left with the what-might-have-beens.
“There was a great buzz around the county then and if we’d beaten Armagh well, who knows, we could have gone the whole way,” says Scoop.
“We had good times then and hopefully more good times are coming starting on Sunday.
“We’ll go there with confidence on Sunday and we’ll give it a lash and see what happens.”
NOBODY said it was gonna be easy. Tony McEntee has worn out a few sets of tyres since he got involved with the Sligo footballers.
He left Crossmaglen at 6am last Wednesday for work at the Hospice in Dublin and then made his way from East to West for training at Bekan. He won’t see home until the other side of midnight and he’ll be up for six and away again.
He spreads himself thin but the support of his family means he can devote his time to what he loves to do.
“I quit football at 32 and county football at 29 so I quit relatively early,” he says.
Any regrets?
“No,” he answers emphatically.
“I was slowing down and I wasn’t the same player so it was my time to go. Since then I’ve been involved in club or county management in some shape or form. It’s something I love and I get the support from home from my wife and my four kids so it’s great but these long trips do wear on you at times and there’ll be a time when it doesn’t work for you anymore.”
When that time comes will we see him managing closer to home? Managing Armagh perhaps?
“Well I was in the management team with Stephen Rochford at Mayo, now I’m in Sligo so I’m moving slightly closer to home but there’s a long way to go yet,” he replies with a smile.
He has 38 players on the panel and they all seem happy with life. Keeping them happy is the biggest challenge of management. So what’s the secret?
“Win,” he says.
“And keep winning.”
He speaks of Red Og Murphy, the Sligo player whose tragic suicide just over a year ago rocked the GAA to its foundations. Red Og’s former team-mates will think of him when they run out at McHale Park and of course they’d love to win the Connacht title in his memory.
“We’re going in against one of the top teams in Ireland and maybe we’re running the risk of being exposed,” says McEntee
“But it doesn’t bother me at all. We’re at the stage now where everything is a bonus to us. We’re going into this game with very little pressure on us – the pressure for us is to perform, it’s not so much about whether we win or lose because there is no expectation on us from anywhere.
“What we have to do is go and put in a display that leaves some mark of ourselves in it. I would love for us to go out and play and for people to say: ‘Hold on, Sligo did themselves justice, they honoured themselves on the field’.”
You can’t ask for more.
