Hoey makes no excuses after heavy Kildare loss

LOUTH minor manager Aaron Hoey had no complaints after his side bowed out of the Electric Ireland Leinster Minor Football Championship to Kildare in Newbridge.

Hoey conceded that despite a positive start the home side were much the better team in all departments.

‘Definitely yeah,’ Hoey stated. ‘Kildare were the best team, showed it on the field. Showed how they could take their scores. We started brightly, I thought we started rightly in the first 20 or 25 minutes. We probably just didn’t hammer home the advantage we had on the scoreboard as the possession we had on the field.

‘Then when Kildare clicked into gear, we got caught for the goal and that was them gone in the first half, 1-7 to 0-4 at half time.

‘We tried to pick the lads up at half time. We did rally, we got the first point of the second half and then we got caught a wee bit asleep at the back for their second goal and then at that stage the game was over.

‘But I have to commend the lads, they had a very difficult year. Stop start league, league not finishing, stop start championship. They have to be commended on the resolve they showed to keep with it and now we are in the second week in December. We should have been finished in June/July.

‘They’re a brilliant bunch of young men and hopefully they can keep going and we’ll see a few of them in the 20s and senior football in the future.’

Hoey highlighted the key turning point in the game, the first Lillywhite goal that unravelled all his side’s good defensive work and took the gas out of their well laid plans.

‘The way we set up we were making them shoot from difficult angles and outside the shooting range if you want to call it that and we were happy with that. We were putting them into unnatural shooting positions and then they were kicking them wide, that was our plan to keep that centre tight.

‘It did work but when we had that period, we didn’t put enough on the scoreboard to cause them any hassle and then when they get the goal, that’s when the momentum switches in the complete opposite direction.

‘And for young fellas to change that around it’s hard, they did try, they definitely did try and never gave up so I can’t complain about any of them men.’

The group had a nine-week break since their opening round win over Wexford and Hoey wasn’t using the pandemic as an excuse for the loss, but instead credited his troops for maintaining and in some cases improving their fitness.

‘Unfortunately, the way things went with COVID, we weren’t even allowed train together,’ Hoey went on to explain.

‘If you had to keep them as a group you probably could have put a bit more impetus on certain things, game plans, different systems of play. But the lads were training on their own in small pods and for them to do that for six weeks, without any help from us, the were given the plan and they stuck to it and they kept their fitness levels up and some of them even improved their fitness levels over that six weeks.

‘I’ve no complaints. We had a game plan, some things didn’t work, some young fellas didn’t perform on the day. We’re not going to name any names, some of our better players the last day just didn’t show and games go like that.

‘They are only 17 years of age, some games can just get to them and maybe the occasion may have got to a couple of them unfortunately.’