Keith Beirne believes Letirim answered their critics by earning an unexpected draw with Derry yesterday.

Coming off to the back of a 0-7 to 7-16 mauling by Roscommon in the Connacht FBD League a couple of weeks ago, Terry Hyland's underdogs produced a vastly improved performance in Celtic Park to start their Allianz League Division 3 campaign on a positive note.

Corner forward Beirne top-scored for the visitors with 0-9 and speaking to RTÉ afterwards, he commented: "Everyone wrote us off coming up to Celtic Park and everyone said Derry beat you twice last year.

"We worked hard in training, we had a rough FBD game [against Roscommon] and played a lot of young lads and we got destroyed. But we came back and worked hard in training for two solid weeks. We knew ourselves that we're capable of competing at this level."

The Mohill clubman is hopeful that Leitrim can go on to retain their Division 3 status after securing promotion from the basement division last year.

"We showed we can be at this level," he added.

"We're disappointed in the sense that we didn't come out with a victory. But we're going to take one point and we're delighted with that.

"Considering everyone wrote us off to get hammered today and you can take one point, we can take it to next Sunday, bring Cork to our home back yard and see what we can get there."

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