The days of rolling over Exiles long gone

THE busiest sporting weekend of the summer so far concluded with Kerry legend Colm Cooper pulling Louth’s name out of the hat for an away trip to Ruislip to play London in the Qualifiers.

Ordinarily this would be regarded as good draw for Pete McGrath’s side but following a disastrous league campaign and first round trouncing by Carlow, Louth chances will viewed as 50/50 at best. Long gone are the days when London were a pushover for better prepared county outfits rolling into West London.

Former Wexford captain Ciaran Deely has been in charge of the Exiles for the last number of years and his role as fitness coach with QPR ensures that London will be physically in good shape.

Sligo put ten points on them at the beginning of May in the Connacht championship but they will relish the opportunity of taking Louth’s scalp in Ruislip on Saturday week. While their League form has always being patchy, they’ve put in some notable championship performances over the last five years, most notably in 2013 when they accounted for Sligo and Leitrim to reach the Connacht final.

They ran Carlow very close in the 2017 Qualifiers losing narrowly 0-13 to 0-12. A feature of the exiles in recent years is the number of London born players in the stating XV with seven or eight expected to line out against Louth. Even though interest in the county set up is at an all-time low, numbers travelling to the English capital could be swelled by the unique nature of the fixture.

I’m not privy to what has gone on in the Louth camp since the Carlow defeat but I’m sure the manager had his work cut out to lift the players morale and spirits.

I’m not sure whether this London game is a good or a bad thing for the county. Yes, it’s a perceived favourable draw. A win could get things back together again and it may provide an opportunity to salvage something from the season.

But a championship defeat to London would herald a new low for Gaelic football in the Wee county. A small part of me was hoping we’d draw Mayo and get this miserable season over and done with.

While morale in Louth GAA is at pretty low ebb at the moment, we’re by no means wallowing in the doldrums on our own. Over the course of the weekend, the grim reaper has come calling to Westmeath, Kildare and Meath in the Leinster championship.

Colin Kelly’s Westmeath went down tamely to Laois on Saturday night in Tullamore, Carlow easily overcame a dispirited Kildare yesterday afternoon while Meath were dumped into the Qualifiers by Longford.

And none of the three received kind draws in this mornings Qualifiers (Westmeath play Armagh, Kildare travel to Derry and Meath face Tyrone). The semi-final line-up for this years Leinster championship reads Dublin v Longford and Carlow v Laois.

Not too many would have predicted those pairings.