A word with Sligo’s Mayoman Alan Costello

JOE got the opportunity to have a few words with Sligo forward, Alan Costello, ahead of the Connacht SFC final on Sunday.

By William Nestor

Sligo are one of the most underrated football counties in the country. They’ve won back-to-back NFL titles, albeit in the lower echelons of Division 3 and 4, and came to within a whisker of knocking reigning All-Ireland champions, Kerry, out of the qualifiers last year. If there was any shortage of fuel for the fire for this year’s Connacht SFC campaign, the Yeats County men do not have to strain their memories too far back.

Alan Costello has been inspirational in his second full season for his adopted county: a ball-carrier, bread-winner and go-to man. For him, moral victories like those against Kerry last year count for nothing.

“Who knows what would have happened?” he says. “You’ll always look back and say, what if? I suppose that was the thing that pushed us on for this year. People were giving us claps on the back for our performances against Kerry and Galway but we still lost those two games and we wanted people talking about how well we were playing and actually winning the games, as opposed to moral victories.”

The occasion

This time three years ago Sligo were in a stickier position than they are in this Sunday. The Connacht final with Galway beckoned and expectations were exceeded with a famous victory. The imminent final is a different kettle of fish. Sligo have done the so-called hard work by defeating Galway and Mayo, and now face a Roscommon side which many have already written off.

“Some of the lads were there in 2007, they’ve experienced it before. There’s a number of lads who wouldn’t have. It’s a massive occasion for all of us. I suppose after ’07 a lot of them thought it was the start of something and then they limped out in ’08. We didn’t perform at all in the league or the championship that year, but we’ve got back on track since that and this Sunday is what playing football is all about.”

Costello hasn’t always been the roving half-forward type, getting his hands dirtied and helping others to rack up tallies. He hails from Balla in County Mayo and it was there that his career as a sharp-shooting corner-forward took off. Beating Mayo in the championship opener was a milestone day for Costello but putting one over on his county men wasn’t something that gave him particular satisfaction.

“When I was growing up, as a teenager playing underage for Mayo, it would never have crossed my mind that I’d end up playing up in a Connacht final for Sligo. But once I got involved with Sligo back in 2008 my ultimate goal was to be successful with them. The last 18 months it’s being working on myself and working as a team to get to days like this on Sunday.

“I’d be friendly with a lot of the Mayo boys. There’s nothing easy in losing games like that. In counties like Mayo there’s so much pressure on you to achieve year after year. You’re expected to win games like that. Obviously, everyone is going to come in for criticism. My heart went out to the boys because it’s not like they hadn’t put in the effort like everyone else. I was absolutely delighted to have won the game because it was the first Connacht senior championship game I’d won.

Nothing to lose

Under the Kevin Walsh regime there seems to be a clinical approach to the game which has been lacking for decades. Confidence oozes from many quarters of the camp and the former Galway hero has certainly had a whole lot to do with the revolution.

“Kevin is a huge figure in the dressing room,” Costello said. “Everyone respects him because of his background in football. He’s not that long out of football and he was a top player. He won All-Irelands with Galway and he was a leader on the pitch. He portrays that very well in the dressing room along with his selectors who again are not long out of football. They’re still playing club football and were icons in Sligo football for the last number of years. The respect was there straight away.

“Everyone is fit which a huge thing. Everyone’s raring to get a chance. The mood is good, everyone’s looking forward to it. But it’s a different kind of a scenario for us going to a game as favourites. It probably hasn’t happened to us in a long time, especially in a big game like this.”

Roscommon have the advantageous underdogs tag this Sunday, but if Sligo are to give any similar account of the way they performed against Galway last time out then there should only be one outcome.

“Everyone is talking about us around the country – how we’ve done so well having beat Mayo and Galway. We felt after the first Galway game that we were the better team and we went about our business the second time. Roscommon are going to be there after coming up quietly and still in the same position we’re in, no matter who we’ve beaten before. The fact they’ve only beaten London and Leitrim doesn’t really matter. It’s great for them going into it as the underdogs. We’re used to that, nothing to lose.”