It's the best of times and the worst of times for Leitrm manager Andy Moran.
Leitrim were promoted to Division 3 last month and had a showcase match in the Division 4 final. The Leitrim manager enjoyed a memorable win for his U20s against his own county last week.
However. a punishing run of fixtures meant that Leitrim were not at their best when they met Sligo in their Connacht SFC match on Sunday.
Leitrim followed up their league final loss against Laois with a 0-15 to 0-6 knockout blow by Sligo.
The former Footballer of the Year came out with all guns firing after the match. Speaking to Maurice Brosnan of the Irish Examiner after the game, Moran accused the GAA of undermining the championship and called on the Gaelic Players Association to contemplate their position on the current fixture schedule.
“I think the GAA are dismissing the championship, if I am being honest with you,” said Moran after the match.
“You came here today. Did that feel like a championship game to anyone coming today? I don’t think it did. We were trying to scramble bodies together for the last while. They threw the U20s on top of it.
"It is just setting teams up for failure in supposedly our biggest competition which is championship. I just think the GPA have to have a serious look at themselves. The GAA put the fixtures, but the GPA have to say: 'I need to protect the players. We need to look after them.' Obviously, Tom (Parsons) is a good friend of mine but what they are doing to players at the minute is absolutely insane.”
Moran has plenty of headaches heading into the game as he only had 22 players togged out.
“We have a 33-man panel,” said Moran. “We have two long-term injuries in Jordan Reynolds and Cillian McGloin. We had four U20s. That brings us down to 27 already. Mark and Conor were sick and concussed. That brings us to 25. Then we have three hamstrings, that is 22 players.
“The five weeks will help us a lot. It is not that we’ve an injury crisis but the U20s will very close to over. We will have them four back, we will add a fellas from the U20s squad and we will have our injured guys back.”
The inequality of the Championship was a huge talking point from the opening weekend. While there were big upsets for the likes of Wicklow and Waterford, the compacted fixture schedule clearly caused huge headaches for the likes of Leitrim and Westmeath.
