Wee County not giving up says Kierans
‘WE can’t give up,’ Louth manager Wayne Kierans insisted, when asked about dreaded relegation to Division 4 in the aftermath of his side’s fourth loss on the trot to Derry at the weekend.
‘It is there, there is no getting away from that. We’ve a home game next week against Leitrim, they are at the foot of the table with ourselves, so obviously that’s very important. The last two away to Cork and home to Down are really tough games. But look, all we can do is try to get two points next week. We can’t get six points now at this minute, there is six available okay, but we just have to try and recover and put in a performance next week.
‘It is achievable, it is mathematically possible that we can stay in the division, so until that’s not the case we won’t be giving up and the boys won’t give up either. Speaking workrate, their intensity and they never give up, their attitude is excellent I have to say. We just have to get a wee bit more streetwise.
‘I thought Derry showed a lot of cynical play. Its a question of, if you can’t beat them, join them,’ Kierans added.
That cynical play was evident as Rory Gallagher’s men defended their blistering start to the game. That’s something Kierans can’t get his head around this season and he felt it cost his side the vital league points.
‘I’m not sure why we are starting
Allianz League Div 3 Table
Cork Longford Derry Offaly Down Tipperary Leitrim Louth
P 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
W 4 2 2 2 2 1 0 0
L 0 1 1 1 1 2 3 4
D 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0
SD 22 9 7 4 -1 -5 -25 -11
Pts 8 5 5 5 5 3 1 0 off really poorly like that,’ Kierans confessed.
‘We conceded early last week as well. Against the wind as well, so it really was the story of the game. If we had to be a couple of points ahead at half-time our performance was good enough in the second half to get something out of it. but the fact we gave them a 1-3 start made it really difficult.
‘We started the second half, we turned over four or five attacks and I said (this is it), we have a platform to go on and do well. But it is very difficult to score against the wind, plus fifteen players behind the ball and we just didn’t do that well enough.
‘We knew it was going to be very difficult to break them down. We didn’t do it often enough. I think we only scored four points in the second half. So it is very difficult and we just weren’t up to the breaking them down as we’d hoped.’
There was some good news on Sunday for Kierans as he welcomed back James Craven and Ryan Burns to the starting fifteen and provided an injury update on the rest of the squad ahead of the crucial run in.
‘Great to get James (Craven) and Burnsey back,’ Kierans enthused.
‘You can see Burnsey’s scoring power there today, free kicks alone, never mind anything else. Sam [Mulroy] served his one match suspension, Casey [Ciaran Byrne] should be in full training this week. Those lads haven’t a lot of training done, thats the thing, so to get as much as we got out of them, it really is fair play to them, credit to them.’
Ultimately for Kierans it is about this Sunday, where he hopes his side finally get some points on the board.
‘It is just very frustrating,’ Kierans finished.
‘We are playing for patches and we’re doing quite well, not unbelievable, but certainly not terrible and we’re getting nothing out of the games.
‘We just have to try and stick together and see what we can do next week against Leitrim.’