Aughawillan manager Sean Pearson has praised his side for sticking to their own way of playing football in winning their Connacht football championship quarter-final on Sunday.
His side defeated Tubercurry 2-12 to 0-13 at Markievicz Park, a first provincial victory in 20 years for the Leitrim side.
Following the victory, Pearson told RTÉ Sport: “It was a great win, not too many gave us a prayer here ... We knew if we stuck to the job, and the way we play football, and gave a performance, we wouldn’t be that far away, and that’s the way it panned out here today.”
Pearson also revealed that his side had prepared with a very draining training session on the Wednesday following their victory over St Mary’s Kiltoghert in the Leitrim county final.
He said: “These boys are very ambitious. They had a couple of days' and evenings' celebration and were back at the drawing board on Wednesday night.
“That was probably the toughest training session we had all year, because we didn’t want to demean this competition in Connacht and go just half-ready for it.
“We wanted to give it a good tilt and we got our just rewards today.”
Aughwillan played into the wind in the first period: Pearson told his side that if they stayed in contention in that period they would have a great chance of winning the tie in the second half.
He said: “The goal kept us on their coat strings. But we said that we’d play against the breeze in the first half, and if we were only a point or two down at half-time it would have been a good day at the office.
“Then we knew we’d have to push on. It was dog eat dog [in the] second half there.
“We had to give it a performance and not leave it behind us. Thirty minutes to get into the next round. We were training for 11 months for this.
“And it boiled down to 30 minutes. The boys had the legs and they had the resolve to go on.”
Next up for Aughawillan is Corofin in the Connacht semi-finals on 9 November.
“Everyone is asking me about Corofin. Look, nobody gave us a hope of winning the Leitrim senior championship. Not many gave us a chance today and probably everybody will be writing us off again [against Corofin],” said Pearson.
“But the spirit and the heart and the tradition of these boys down here. If we get a performance against Corofin we’ll be very happy. We’ll give it a go.”
