Missing inspirational defenders John McKeon and Michael McGuinness, captain Gary McCloskey and the man who caused such havoc in the Galway defence in the Connacht Championship semi-final, Declan Maxwell, to name but a few, the strength of Dessie Dolan’s squad was tested to the full in Cusack Park.

Playing in what is looked down upon as a second rate competition and missing so many important players, Dessie said “they played with a lot of pride in the jersey and that’s what I asked them to do before the game. We were short a lot of men but having said that the lads that came in did very well.”

Speaking after the four point victory over Clare, Dessie acknowledged that it was good to be able to give players a game who may not have figured too much up to this point.

“I was delighted that lads got a run this evening who probably wouldn’t normally get a run.”

While the spirit and pride with which the Leitrim players played was what Dessie focused on initially he agreed that his charges had produced some excellent football.

“They played some very good football. Clare are not a bad side. Westmeath came down here a year ago and were beaten in a qualifier game. It speaks volumes of the Leitrim performance here tonight.”

Having played against the breeze in the first half Dessie commented that he asked the players for more of the same in the second half but to stop Clare coming forward.

“I just said to keep playing the way were playing. We weren’t winning the breaking ball as much as we should have and when we were playing possession football through the field, we walked through them.

“We had to stop them coming forward, we weren’t stopping them, we let them run the whole length of the field for the goal and we stopped them in the second half. We got bodies behind the ball, then we attacked and we got the few scores that counted I suppose.”

Half-time was also the occasion that the Leitrim management team decided to make their first change.

Darren Duignan was introduced to the action and almost immediately he made an instant impact as he won the penalty from which Emlyn Mulligan scored Leitrim’s goal and Dessie paid tribute to the Gortletteragh man for the work that he has put in all year.

“Darren is a good lad. He has been training all year and he’s been there or there abouts. All the lads that came on did well. They’re all good lads.”

Although the draw has now been made and Leitrim know that they will be travelling to Aughrim to face Wicklow at 3pm this coming Saturday, immediately after the victory over Clare the worst case scenario was that Leitrim would be travelling to London next Saturday.

When that was put to Dessie, he initially looked worried before he was able to see the funny side of it.

“Yeah, I suppose that could be on the cards,” commented Dolan beginning to look horrified by the thought of having to travel over to London.