Winter training in Leitrim is characterised by an intimacy which small numbers bring. With over half the squad resident in Dublin, the home-based crew found themselves huddling close during the heavy running, for fear that one of them might get lost.

"You'd have maybe 10 or 11 lads out, which naturally has its own difficulties for the players and for the management," says veteran player Seamus Quinn.

The stretch in the evenings has facilitated meeting at a half-way point, and since they have journeyed to train at Mullingar it has been easier to identify a collective sense of purpose. For Quinn, this year is simple. Leitrim play Roscommon on Sunday and not many expect them to do anything other than lose. He just wants to confound the general expectation.

Quinn and Aidan Rooney are the lone links between the current Leitrim football squad and 1994, the summer which engulfed the county with its bright ferocity. A season which began which trembling optimism ended in a glorious provincial win and an historic All Star award for Quinn.

Sixty-seven years is one spectacular stretch of footballing woe and when Leitrim ended the wait for a Connacht title, they took the arduous route, overcoming Roscommon, Galway (after a replay) and Mayo in the final.

The odds going into the All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin were stacked against them but the there was nonetheless a carnival atmosphere in the county which did not subside for weeks. There was a feeling that Leitrim football was reborn, that it was a new time. The team was young and even if they lost to Dublin, they had more than enough to come out again. Classic sentiments. Dublin bruised them with a 315 to 1-9 scoreline and Leitrim have not come out of Connacht since.

"I suppose when I think about our results since then, the year that really gnaws is 1995. We definitely slipped up then against Galway (the provincial champions fell by a point). We had a stronger squad, more experience. It was an awful thing to let happen."

And the subsequent years hammered home just how fleeting these celestial moments are. The subsequent summer they again fell to Galway, and the margin was once more devastatingly narrow. Slowly, key players bid the game adieu. John O'Mahony, the talismanic manager, had brought the team as far as he felt he could. It became apparent that 1994 and all its promise had been eclipsed.

"It was a good squad of players we had around then," says Quinn.

"I mean, we are really at a rebuilding stage at the moment. There are a lot of good lads coming through but it will take us time. I mean, we spent four years trying to get to the point where we could challenge for a provincial title in 1994."

But the past few seasons have seen the county slide to the its traditional low rung in the west. Galway, at the outset of an All-Ireland run, visited them in Carrick-on-Shannon in 1998 and inflicted a drubbing which starkly illustrated their position.

"There were a few years when belief seemed to seep out of the side. That was definitely one of them, a really terrible time. It was an uncertain time for us and things didn't go well the following league. But while people don't expect much from us at the moment we have recovered the sense of what we are trying to achieve."

This year's league was driven by an inconsistent flirtation with promotion which was extinguished under controversial circumstances against Offaly, when full-time appeared to be called early. Appeals fell on deaf ears.

"It was an uneven sort of year. We lost games we might have won and vice versa. But I do think that there is a renewed sense of purpose there now."

And yet, from afar, they appear as so many of the other counties do, eternally swimming against the tide, hoping for a break. Quinn is unmoved at the thought of most of the country writing Leitrim off on Sunday.

"Well, I'm going up to win," says Quinn. "That's about all I can say."