Kierans feels win will stand to Louth

really try to change hange very much exceptcept for personnel. . We kept to the gameplan the whole way through including extra-time, which was good too.’

Penalties played a major part in the outcome - one scored, one savedaved and one that wasn’t given, and Kierans paid tribute to his goalscorer and ‘keeper and he was also grateful to referee, Niall Ward.

‘John [Gallagher} put the penalty away really well, it was a great strike. Alan McGauley is a great lad and he did very well with his kick-outs and he came up trumps with the penalty save, which was vital. There was a scramscramble in there at the end alright anand there wwere ccertainly appeals for it from the line and the crcrowd, but the referee waswasn’t certain taincertain oobviously, ly,obviously, so ththankfully he didn’t ggive it.’ While victovictory was sweet, Kierans isn’t getting carried away, but he feels the experience could be vital for his team. ‘Obviously we want to win, but we’re not fantastic because we won and we wouldn’t have been terrible if we lost. We’ll just keep a considered opinion about ourselves and try to improve, but the quarter-finals is the place to be.

‘This will give them great belief. I wasn’t overly worried about the results in the league. We let ourselves down performance-wise in one of the games against Meath. We might have a chance to put that right. In spells of the other two games we played well and in fairness we pulled it together a lot better today and that’s what you want come the championship.

‘It’s massive experience for them. For fitness and all aspects of the game really and with players coming off the bench. It will give them that belief that we sometimes lack in Louth and the only way to get it is to keep winning.

‘We’ve an opportunity to go and watch some games now [in the losers section], but we’ll just concentrate on ourselves. We’ll wait on the draw and prepare as best we can for the quarter-finals.’