Ahead of their All-Ireland U-20 final against Kildare, Sligo manager Paul Henry has hailed "a good crop of lads" that are under his care, a group that are enjoying their football.
The Yeats County, after winning a maiden Connacht title in the grade in 2022, retained their crown last month and then last weekend edged out Kerry to claim a place in the Kingspan Breffni decider against opposition who defeated them at the last-four stage 12 months ago.
Sligo football is on the rise, with Tony McEntee's senior side gaining promotion from Division 4 and then reaching a Connacht final. They were well beaten by Galway in the Nestor Cup decider but they still have three games to come in the All-Ireland round-robin, an opportunity then for further development.
Henry, who led his county to a provincial minor win in 2021, took on the U20s at the start of the year. It's a continuation of the journey that he and much of his squad have been on for a number of years.
He told 2fm's Game On: "I got involved with a friend of mine Adrian Donohue who had started with the development squad. I had done a bit of coaching with Adrian with the club (Curry) at a time when some of our lads were at the under-14 development stage. We've brought a few of them through.
"One of the main areas of focus was making sure these lads enjoyed it and ended up bonding as a good group. We tried to ensure that the better footballers in Sligo, that wanted to play would enjoy the experience of coming into Sligo GAA, that they wanted to play GAA rather than soccer or rugby.
"From that we could see that the skill level and technical level was improving. It is improving throughout Sligo at the minute between all the different schools and coaches that are employed by Sligo GAA. Throughout the clubs, the quality of coaches that are there are improving these lads. I'm very lucky to have three great coaches with me in Enda Mitchell, Ross Donovan and John Paul Carden
"Overall, we were very lucky in that we came across a good crop of lads. They get on well together and it's all coming to fruition now."
Henry also knew that if you want to be the best, you have to play the best. Getting games against quality opposition was key.
"We needed to know what would happen if they came up against a big county," he added.
"When we got to minor grade with a number of these lads we decided we were going to test them; we knew there was quality in the group.
"That year we set out to try and find challenges against the bigger teams. We started off in Healy Park against Tyrone. We got a win and the lads started to think we're in with a chance here; we can compete with the big teams.
"We then played Kerry in a challenge down in Ennis and lost by two or three points but they knew they had the opportunity to win that game. It gave them a huge lift to know the work they'd been doing was improving them and that they could compete against any county in the country on a given day."
So far on their championship run, Sligo have beaten Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Kerry.
"It's been a great journey; no one can say we've had an easy run of it, having to go away from home in each of the games," said the manager.
"We've travelled some miles this year. We've had a huge Sligo crowd following us, a massive crowd the last day. It's bringing people back to Sligo and giving them a bit of pride about Sligo."
After Kildare had narrow wins over Dublin and Down to again reach the decider, Henry, not surprisingly, is expecting a tough encounter in Cavan town.
"It's going to be a huge battle; we've seen how well they've gone in the championship so far. They got through an epic clash with Dublin and then got over Down the last day. In different stages in both games it looked like it was getting away from them but they still managed to pull a win out of it."
Henry also had news on the illness which ruled Dillon Walsh out of the game with Kerry. Walsh was the hero in the Connacht final when he fisted over the winning point.
"Dillon went down with meningitis on us; it rocked us a little bit. We were very, very worried about his health. Dillon got back out of hospital yesterday (Tuesday) and he's starting to make a good recovery. He's building up himself everyday. It's great to hear that he's on the mend."
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