Wicklow Wanderers: On the road from Crossmaglen with Oisín McConville and his backroom team

The Wicklow team will this Sunday attempt to do something they haven't managed since 1989 – win back-to-back Leinster championship games in the same season.

In that run 35 years ago, the Garden County defeated Carlow in the preliminary round before nine points from Pat Baker saw off Kildare. In the semi-final, their hopes of a first final appearance in 102 years were ended by Dublin who had half a dozen points to spare, mainly thanks to Barney Rock.

It’s Kildare again in the quarter-final this weekend, and fresh off last Sunday’s surprise win over Westmeath, the Garden County granted RTÉ Sport a peak behind the curtain with access to their training session on the Tuesday night ahead of the game in Portlaoise.

3.30pm

The initial meeting point, Castletown just outside Dundalk town centre.

The highly affable Des Jennings, Wicklow’s performance coach, parks up after driving south from Belfast. His relationship with manager Oisín McConville goes back decades at this stage with the pair having worked so closely together in Armagh’s 2002 All-Ireland success.

Twenty-two years later the pair are in tandem again, heading onto the motorway towards Dublin with an extra passenger in tow for driver McConville and front-seat passenger Jennings as RTÉ Sport got to go along for the ride.

Last Sunday’s surprise win over Westmeath had led to an upbeat - but far from jovial - mood as McConville drives towards his adopted county.

Football talk is prominent. A challenge game against Kildare pre-league and the mistakes from that are spelled out before the Westmeath game is dissected now that everyone has had time to watch the video back.

Referee Paddy Neilan, the pair feel, did OK and they agree that he could have easily played an extra 30 seconds as