With his son Rossa primed to make a breakthrough, Sloyan decided the time was right to step away from the Yeats U-20s and dip his toes into senior football as a Longford selector under Paddy Christie.
Scheduling conflicts make it difficult to be in two places today but he will try to make a fair fist of it as he heads for Breffni Park in Cavan (1.30 throw-in) to watch Sligo and his son before making a swift exit.
Longford’s opening round of the Tailteann Cup throws in against Limerick at 6.0 some 250km away in the Gaelic Grounds but he wouldn’t miss the chance for Sligo to win a rare All-Ireland title for anything.
A Connacht minor title in 2021 followed by back-to-back provincial U-20 titles and an All-Ireland final date have Sligo people dreaming, with Sloyan happy that “things are looking good for the future”.
As with most revivals, there is no one reason for success but a deep layer of positive developments.
“It’s a combination of everything, you can’t point at one thing,” Sloyan says. “There’s huge work at development squads, there’s a lot of work going on in schools like St Attracta’s, Summerhill College and loads of others too.
“The county board have to get credit as well because they bring in good management teams and put good structures in place and give managers good support and backing, I got great support.
“The managers and selectors are local as well and they get players that sometimes, like my own young fella never played county football until this year and now he’s played every game so far for the U-20s.
“Everyone is pulling together and moving in the right direction, that’s the key to it. You cannot put all of your eggs in the one basket in your development squads either.
“Your best managers and coaches have to spread their wings out good and far and then it all comes together eventually. If we miss one good player, it’s a big loss for Sligo.”
Rossa is studying across the border in St Muredach’s College in Ballina – where he is coached by Mayo star James Carr – and he is one of many who now believe they can slay the giants of Connacht and beyond.
“You have to make hay when the sun shines with good teams and make sure that we progress them right through, that it doesn’t finish at minor or U-20 and that there’s another plan in place to get to senior,” the elder Sloyan says.
“That’s the next step in Sligo’s development, to get these lads from that U-20 team that are used to winning Connacht titles and used to competing with the Mayos, Roscommons and Galways and beating them and get them into your senior squad. Confidence comes from winning the big games and beating the big teams.
“It’s something Sligo have been doing on and off in the past but there’s nothing between us at underage now and it is hard beaten once you get those few wins. The only way to instil that is by actually going out and winning games.”
Victories over Roscommon, Mayo and Galway (all of which were played on their travels) was followed by a famous win over a Tomás Ó Sé-led Kerry to leave them on the brink of All-Ireland glory.
It’s no coincidence that Sligo U-20 boss Paul Henry, who also led them to that famous minor success, is the man at the helm either, having done a lot of unseen work behind the scenes that is now bearing fruit.
“Paul was working with some of these lads outside of our panel last year. He was working with a development squad who were on S&C programmes to get them ready for U-20 this year,” Sloyan says.
“For years in Sligo, we would have had a really good minor team and then those guys wouldn’t have been strong enough to come into an U-20 panel and they were lost for a year.
“Then, they wander away from football so it’s about keeping them in the system the whole time. The next thing is keeping those U-20s from last year and this year in another system, that’s the progression.”
Revenge will be on their minds when they meet a Kildare side that trumped them 12 months ago, while All-Ireland success would send Sligo into a frenzy.
“It would be an absolutely huge boost for the county,” Sloyan says. “Even reaching the All-Ireland final is a massive boost but it’s about going and winning it now.
“It would definitely boost the morale of the county and bring football back. This underage success has definitely given a huge boost and huge confidence to the whole county again. The county is on a football high again.”