Upbeat Moran admits gulf in conditioning after Galway loss

Leitrim manager Andy Moran remained upbeat after his side's heavy defeat away to Galway - but acknowledged that the conditioning and skill-level of the home side really told after the break.

Playing into the wind in the first half, Leitrim trailed by just a point after 20 minutes, however the favourites pushed the lead out to seven by half-time (0-12 to 0-05) and really turned the screw thereafter.

Four second-half goals, all coming courtesy of substitutes, Patrick Kelly with a brace and Niall Daly and Owen Gallagher with the others, saw Padraic Joyce's team run up a 23-point margin as Leitrim wilted.

"For the majority of the first half, up until the 31st/32nd minute, we did really, really well. We were really competitive, especially around the middle of the field," Moran told RTÉ Sport after the game.

"But at the end of the first half and into the second half, the conditioning and the skill level of the Galway boys just told. We struggled to go with it over the course of the 70 minutes.

"We came in with hope. I said beforehand that we were looking for our boys to play their best game. I thought for large parts of it, we did it. But we're coming from Division 4, we're trying to build.

"You even saw yesterday, in the Cork-Kerry game yesterday, it went very quickly on Cork and the same thing happened to us today. Once that game went in at the start of the second half, we struggled from there on in."

Prior to today, 2022 had gone reasonably for Leitrim, having narrowly missed out on promotion from Division 4 and then navigating the traditionally awkward challenge of London in Ruislip.

And Moran is enthused about the Tailteann Cup, although he would rather it were operated on a round-robin as opposed to the geographically organised