Former Leitrim star Emlyn Mulligan says that he and five other ex-county players offered their services to senior team manager Steven Poacher to try and to fulfil the fixture against Fermanagh last weekend.

News broke last Saturday that Leitrim had conceded their home Allianz League tie with the Ernesiders the following day, with Poacher citing “an unfortunate set of circumstances” leading to a lack of available numbers within his squad.

Speaking on OceanFM this week, Mulligan revealed that he reached out to Poacher the day before the scheduled Division 4 clash in Ballinamore to try help see the game played. 

"I did contact Steven myself on Saturday, just voicing my slight concern, and I put it out there that I would tog out myself on Sunday, and that I would get five other players that had recently retired from inter-county football that would come with me, and that we would sit on the bench just to fulfil that fixture," he said.

"We are proud Leitrim men, and we have given so much to the county over the years, and as a player you want to leave the jersey in the best place possible, and and over the last couple of years, through Andy (Moran) and that, I felt it was getting to a high enough standard, so just to see it all over the media, and not being able to get 15 players out on the pitch, it's just a really sad day.

"I got in touch with a couple of lads just to see if there would be potential, if it was a case of they couldn't get players, but obviously the intention was to invite maybe fringe players who maybe did well in the club championship last year.

"I know Steven's point of view on that was that they were not prepared, but at the same time I felt that I need to just put myself forward, because I don't want to see my county go down this sort of avenue and get this sort of attention.

"I just wanted to put on record that there was a number of us who would have togged out on Sunday just to fulfil the fixture."

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