Injured Morgan hails Louth’s true grit

CONOR Morgan vowed to be fit for Louth’s Leinster quarter-final after Sunday’s dramatic extra-time win over Laois.

The midfielder was forced to retire with an injury, but he declared it was nothing serious and he was grateful to his teammates for seeing it home.

‘The injury is just a bit of bruising, I’ll be fine for the quarter-final, put it that way,’ he said.

‘The lads really pushed on in the second period of extra-time. The likes of ‘Callo’ [Eoghan Callaghan], James Reilly had nothing left in the tank but they kept going. That all comes back to Wayne Kierans instilling that in us back in January. Even when you have nothing left, you keep going.

‘It’s all about the grit and determination. We have winners in that team and even when Laois went two points up we came back. John Gallagher kicked a super free and obviously the penalty was a turning point. But I thought the whole way through the game we were going to win.

‘We had to keep our shape at the end, but we’ve been working that for the last three months down in Darver. Wayne instilled that belief in us. He said we’d have fitness, organisation and that the talent would come and all three shone today.’

And it was a squad effort if ever there was one, with Kierans delving deep into his reserves. Morgan feels that’s par-for-the-course in the modern game.

‘It’s not about 15 anymore, it’s the full panel. We made seven subs I think and every one of them could have started. It’s a panel game now, 15 won’t win any game anymore.’

The victory certainly made up for a disappointing Leinster League campaign, which saw the Reds lose all three of their group games, but Morgan was confident they were better than that.

‘We were disappointed with the results in the league, but if you look at the Westmeath and Kildare games, we kicked ourselves out of it. So coming down here people were probably saying sure it’s only Louth, but it’s time we started changing. No-one can say we don’t produced talented footballers.’