Defeat should motivate Reds for trip to Tipp

A disappointed Derek Maguire insisted that Louth have to flush Sunday’s defeat from the system without delay, but he stressed that they must also use the experience as motivation for Sunday’s promotion showdown with Tipperary in Thurles.

‘A heavy defeat isn’t really something we’ve experienced with the exception of the Dublin game, so we have to show our character and pick it up in training,’ he said. ‘We need to forget about this, but also use the feeling we have today to motivate us for next week.’

The Dundalk Young Irelands man had no complaints about the outcome of Sunday’s one-sided contest, but wouldn’t be reading too much into it either.

‘Armagh were by far the better team on the day. They ran through us too easily, especially in the first-half and we gave away two easy goals,’ he conceded.

‘We probably never really recovered from that. We chipped away with a few points towards the end of the first-half, but in the second-half we had to score first and we didn’t.

‘Armagh had three or four up before we scored and we only managed three or four points in the second-half, so it just wasn’t good enough. We know that ourselves so we have to pull ourselves together and re-group and get ready for Tipperary.

‘Armagh were very good, but I think we made them look better than they are. We are a far better team than we showed. I would consider Louth a better team than Armagh, but we obviously didn’t show it today. It’s hard to take when you know you can do better. Today they probably looked like a Division 2 team, but we looked more like a Division 4 team.

‘Obviously they had the lead at half-time and from there you can close the game out and defend what you have. We had to push on and press them higher and we left bigger gaps in defence. It was similar to what happened against Dublin in the second-half.’

But with two games to play Louth are still joint top of the table, albeit with Sunday’s trip to Tipp likely to have a huge bearing on the promotion race.

‘It’s still in our hands and we have Tipperary next week. We can still do what we planned at the start of the year which was to push on up to Division 2.

‘Tipperary are going to be a very tough team to beat and realistically they are probably a better team than Armagh. We’re under no illusions about how hard it will be and we have a number of things we need to address from today. If we’re any way like that next week we’ll be beaten by the same amount.

‘You can sense in the dressing room, that everyone is devastated by the defeat, but we won’t dwell on it.’

Maguire refused to blame the heavy surface for Louth’s performance, but the Reds have looked better on firmer ground this campaign.

‘It’s the same for both teams, heavy for them and heavy for us. Maybe the firmer ground will suit us better, but who knows, but we’ll find out next week.’

The Reds will be without Anthony Williams as a result of his red card on Sunday, but Maguire is hopeful a few injuries will clear up during the week.

‘Anthony picked up a red card which is very out of character, and I’m gutted for him. But there’s boys there on the bench that can come in and do a job and hopefully next week we’ll have Jim and Andy and Dulla [Liam Dullaghan] back too,’ he concluded.