Maguire feels Reds deserved to hang on
DEREK Maguire felt Louth deserved to hang on for victory on Sunday and paid tribute to the work ethic and character they showed to repel Longford’s late rally.
‘I think they got a lot of easy free kicks near the end and the scoreline probably flattered them a bit,’ he said. ‘We were on top for a lot of the game and the main thing is that we closed it out well. The lads worked hard. We dug deep and we got the two points and that was the plan. After two games we’re top of the league, so we couldn’t ask for anything better at the moment.’
Home fans may have been worried that the O’Byrne Cup failings in front of the target might prove costly once more, but Maguire (below) feels the team is still improving their chances-to-scores ratio.
‘We missed a few chances and we seemed to be trying to walk the ball in to the net at times. But I think we’re learning from our mistakes. In the O’Byrne Cup we were kicking a lot more wides, but now I’d say we’re scoring more and making better decisions. We’re fine-tuning it and we’re getting there.’
But a failure to harvest more scores with the breeze at their backs in the first-half did seem to embolden Longford and Maguire wasn’t surprised by the resolve they showed.
‘We would have expected them to come back in fairness. It was a very strong wind and scores were hard to come by. They have a top-quality forward line and we knew at some stage they would get a purple patch. It came and we weathered the storm and lucky enough the final whistle came just in time.
‘I wouldn’t say there was a huge contrast in the performance from the Laois game. Laois probably threw in the towel in the second half and as you can see Longford didn’t. They dug deep and they are a quality team. They beat Down and Monaghan last year.’
Maguire managed to break forward for his customary score before half-time, but he was concerned with the chance he missed late on.
‘When a gap opens you are going to go forward. I missed a handy one at the end against the breeze to put four in it and instead they went down and scored a point and put two in it. That could have closed the game out.’
After seven games in as many weeks, Louth don’t play Offaly until Sunday week, but Maguire isn’t sure if that’s necessarily a good thing.
‘A break is always good, but I suppose sometimes the intensity can drop off. It was great to have a game every weekend because it meant you weren’t busted in training. We were able to concentrate on ball skills rather than fitness because the fitness was coming from the games.
‘But we’ll work hard next weekend, do a bit of fitness work next week and then we’ll be back at it again the week after. It’ll be all guns blazing for Offaly.’
Top of the league after two wins, supporters are bound to start dreaming of a return to Division 2, but Maguire is remaining cautious. ‘I’m not going to say the big ‘P’ word, we’re going to take every game as they come. Offaly is up next and that is all we are thinking about. Hopefully we can push on from
there.’ JOHN SAVAGE