Being out after one game is tough on players
THE WAY THE CONDITIONS WERE, ANY TIME YOU WERE IN THE TACKLE IT WAS 50/50, SO WE WERE TRYING TO MOVE THE BALL AT SPEED AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN, AGAINST WEAK SHOULDERS, TO EITHER DRAW A FREE OR CREATE THE OVERLAP LIKE WE DID AGAINST DOWN.
LOUTH sweeper Paddy Reilly’s job was to be alert to danger and cut out any balls behind him into his full back line, and in this observation role he was best suited to sum up Louth’s loss to Longford.
‘Very hard to put into words,’ Reilly noted.
‘I thought we got ourselves into it after a poor start. We let them into the game, gave them a head start with the goal and a couple of points early on. Then we worked ourselves back into the game.
‘I felt going in at half-time, despite having really not played well, we were in the game. I thought we were ready to kick on when we got a couple of second-half scores but didn’t.
‘I thought we missed a couple of chances in the first half and dropped the ball short in the second half too. So we had chances to exploit them but we didn’t take them.
‘The conditions were poor. We didn’t penetrate them enough either, but look, it will sting for a while for a lot of lads.’
When asked more about the exact nature of playing in the dreadful conditions, Reilly provided the detail.
‘The way the conditions were, any time you were in the tackle it was 50/50, so we were trying to move the ball at speed as much as you possibly can, against weak shoulders, to either draw a free or create the overlap like we did last week (against Down).
‘Probably a wee bit more difficult today. I don’t know, very tough, even getting your footing. It was making sure you were set because your foot was just slipping every time you went to plant it. It is bad for both teams I suppose, not just for ourselves, but it is very hard to move the ball as quickly as we can.
‘Once the ball hits the deck, all of a sudden it is a dogfight for both teams.’
With Louth coming out on the wrong side of that dogfight, the abrupt finality of the season dawned on Reilly, with no qualifier to look forward to. Being out of the Championship after one game of knockout football was still a hard one to process for the St Bride’s man in the direct aftermath.
‘It is very strange, surreal,’ Reilly acknowledged. ‘Especially for myself, only coming back into the panel four or five weeks ago. It is kinda like coming in, a new start for lads because they put the previous or the first part of that league campaign behind them and tried to move on and get them to make the most of this situation.
‘I know we played poorly in Cork, but last week the lads maintained it was the best they played in probably 18 months or so. It’s hard to take overall because the quality we believe in that dressing-room should come out on top today and we just didn’t.’