Mmer sizzler

the summer buzz, the championship buzz.’

While the National League was a whitewash, Duffy insists Louth can take positives from it and he’s positive they’ll be stronger for it.

‘It’s gone and it didn’t go as planned for numerous reasons. We had a huge turnover of players and it was a tough division to be in in that sort of situation.

‘But through bits and pieces of that league there were positives, like the young lads coming in. Lads who made debuts have really kicked on and you can even see it over the last few weeks with the scores they’re putting up in club games. You can see that they have taken their game to the next level.

‘It’s not easy going out and losing week-in and-week out, it’s really testing at times, but I’ve no doubt in my mind that it does strengthen you as a team and a squad. You’re a better player when you come through these things and hopefully on Sunday we can show that and pull it all together.’

In a normal year, there might be a distinct danger of taking a team like Carlow for granted, but after their respective league campaigns Duffy insists there’s no fear of that. In fact, even without their talisman Brendan Murphy, he reckons Carlow will be slight favourites.

‘Carlow are a good side. They’ve got their act together over the last few years and gained promotion this year and it was fully deserved by all accounts. I don’t think it will be as high scoring as two years ago given the way they set up and play their game, but I’m still confident we’ll come out on the right side of the result.

‘In fairness the management team are fairly in-depth with the analysis of Carlow and they’ve been on our minds since even before the end of the league campaign. So we’ve been doing bits on them and looking at clips and watching how they play. The work has been put in on that side of things, but there comes a point where you have to stop looking at them and start focusing on ourselves.

‘Brendan Murphy is one of their best players and we would have had to come up with a plan for him and obviously we don’t have to now, but they’ll bring in other players and they have the other Murphy who played in midfield too and Gannon who’s been playing on the wing, I think he’ll drop into the midfield. He’s a very good player. Every time I’ve played against him I’ve been impressed. He can score, he can move, he can catch. They’ll be losing a bit with Brendan Murphy but they won’t be losing too much.

‘You would have to say they are favourites after their league campaign and the confidence they’ve built up. They’ll be confident of getting the victory themselves. But we’re happy enough with the work we’ve done over the last few weeks. We have our plan in place and I’m sure we’ll come out on the right side of it.’