In Naomh Mairtin’s young guns

objective on Sunday.

‘We’re the same as any of the 12 senior clubs in Louth, at the start of the year they strive for Joe Ward. There’s two left standing now and thankfully we’re one of them.’

But having lost all three of their clashes with the Blues this season in the league, championship and O’Donnell Cup final, Jim accepts that the Jocks have a gap to close.

‘We went into the [championship] game thinking we had prepared well and we thought we were ready for them, but on the day Newtown Blues were the much better team. There’s no point mincing our words, they beat us off the park.

‘But at the same time it was a good reckoner for us and we stepped back and re-grouped and we knew it was cup finals from there on. Against Kilkerley in the next game it was do-or-doe and at half-time it was level 1-5 apiece. So we did progress from there. That evening the Blues were the better team, but I’d like to think we’ve improved a good bit since then.’

A really competitive run of games since the start of last month has certainly helped.

‘At the start of the year you’d love to be able to plan out your schedule and when you play your games and it fell really well for us this year, and the Blues too, they were in the same boat. I know the likes of the Pats went a long time without a competitive game, whereas we were thrown a very competitive league semi-final against Dreadnots and the final against the Blues. I think we had something like five competitive games in six weeks so that really brought us on as well.’

Jim knows that on Sunday most people will be anticipating a Blues’ victory, but he feels the Jocks will be ready for them and could be dangerous underdogs.

‘Every man, woman and child that knows the GAA in Louth knows the Blues are a team in form. They are really efficient and they work really hard. When the opposition have the ball they get men behind the ball and they can break at pace. When they’re in good form they’re a very confident team and they take most of their chances.

‘But we believe in ourselves and we have a plan in place, whether it works or not we’ll know on Sunday. Their kick-outs are very good and they’ve done great work on them so the first thing we want to do is nullify that to offset their attacking play. Other than that we’ll have faith on our own team because sometimes you can put too much into analysing the opposition. We know them inside out and we’ve spoken about, but there isn’t much you’re telling the guys that they don’t already know. We have certain strategies, but overall we have to concentrate on our own game,’ he adds.