Sligo's All Star defender Charlie Harrison talks about the benefits of playing New York, beating Galway and his hopes of winning a second Connacht SFC medal at Mayo's expense.

One of the performances of the football championship to date has been Sligo's surprise, but fully merited, 2-14 to 0-15 victory over Galway in the Connacht SFC semi-final five weeks ago.

Trailing by five points late in the first half, Kevin Walsh's All-Blacks turned in a sensational second half performance to stun a much-fancied Galway team that had trounced Roscommon by 14 points in the previous round. So where did that performance come from? After all, Sligo had failed to challenge for promotion from Division 3 of the Allianz League and, while they easily disposed of New York's challenge in the opening round of the Connacht SFC, nobody was reading anything in that result.

And following the huge disappointment of 2010 when they were caught cold by Roscommon in the Connacht final after seemingly doing all the hard by beating both Mayo and Galway, last year was a virtual write-off with relegation from Division 2 being followed by disastrous championship losses to Leitrim and Wicklow.

"We were only stringing 10- or 15-minute performances together in the league, but when we went to New York we knew things were starting to come together," Charlie recalls.

"It was a great trip from the point of view that we got a good result (3-21 to 0-6) and had some time together. When you're away for five or six days as a group, you're able to work on stuff and do things you wouldn't normally be able to do. You're basically a professional for the time you're together.

"When it came to the Galway game, we knew we'd do well. People weren't giving us much of a chance, which was fair enough after their performance against Roscommon, but having beaten them in three of our last four meetings, we had that over them. We weren't panicking after being four or five points down in the first half, and thankfully we were able to turn it around in the second half.

"It was Sligo's first time to beat Galway in Pearse Stadium, so it was a massive result. We'd beaten them in Tuam before, but never in Salthill," he proudly adds.

Harrison, who is a Games Promotion Officer with the Sligo county board, goes as far as to say that the Yeatsmen are in the best shape they've ever been in his eight seasons on the county panel. And he puts it all down to the effort of manager Kevin Walsh and his backroom team.

"The amount of work that has gone into the team in Kevin's four years as manager has been phenomenal. I don't think we've ever been as well prepared as we are this year. Our physical trainer, Mick Toland from Donegal, came in with Kevin in 2008 and deserves huge credit for the effort he has put in.

"And what can you say about Kevin? He has been fantastic for Sligo and his record speaks for itself. He won back-to-back Division 3 and 4 titles in 2009 and 2010, an All-Ireland junior title in 2010 and has now brought us to his second Connacht final. It took us a long time to get over the disappointment of losing the 2010 final, and maybe that explains why we had such a poor year last year, but it's out of our system now and we've come back this year with our batteries fully recharged," he says.

Despite their superb result against Galway, Sligo will go into Sunday's final as underdogs again against a Mayo team who are being touted as serious All-Ireland contenders after an impressive Allianz League campaign and a 22-point demolition of Leitrim in the Connacht SFC semi-final three weeks ago.

"We're used to being underdogs, so we're not complaining," continues Charlie, who plays his club football with St. John's on the south side of Sligo Town.

"When you look at it, we're a Division 3 team and they're a Division 1 team. They were playing Cork in a Division 1 league final a couple of months ago when we were sitting at home looking on. There are some serious footballers in Mayo, the likes of Andy Moran and so on.

"We're under no illusions about the task that's in front of us. It must have been tough on them being the last team into championship action this year. You could see that bit of ring-rustiness in their play for the first 15 minutes against Leitrim, but they cut loose after that to blow Leitrim away."

How does this Sligo team compare to the one that brought the Nestor Cup back to the county for first time in 32 years in 2007 and for only the third time in all?

"I'll tell you after the 15th of July!" the wing back jokingly replies.

"I suppose the big difference between now and 2007 is that we have Connacht winners on our team. There's also a nice mixture of youth and experience. I can honestly say this is the first year I've played with Sligo where everyone on the starting team is looking over their shoulders. There's fierce competition for places and you can be sure that young fellas like Neil Ewing, Shane McManus , Mark Quinn and Pat Hughes will be jumping out of their skins to try and win their first Connacht medals on Sunday."

In 2010, Harrison became only the fourth Sligo footballer to receive an All Star award, following in the footsteps of Mickey Kearns (1971), Barnes Murphy (1974) and Eamon O'Hara (2002). Despite featuring at right corner back throughout that season, he was selected in the other corner. He was also honoured with a GPA award that year.

It's a little known fact that Charlie made his senior championship debut for London before Sligo. He came to the attention of the London team management while studying Sports Science and Geography at St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, and featured for the Exiles against Galway and Dublin in the 2004 championship. He was thrown in at the deep end against Galway, being given the unenviable task of marking Michael Meehan. Interestingly, current Sligo wing forward Brendan Egan also lined out for London that year.

Charlie made his championship debut for Sligo against Cork in the 2005 All-Ireland qualifiers in Portlaoise. As well as being an automatic choice on the county team since, he has coached various Sligo development squads and is currently involved with the U15s. In 2010, he was joint manager along with Tommy Breheny (the Yeats County's 2007 Connacht SFC winning manager) of the Sligo U16 team that won the prestigious Fr. Manning Cup. Tweet

Most Read Stories