‘different Louth side’ in two weeks

team, whatever happened. We knew that taking the game. We probably could have had Division 2 teams here who wouldn’t have been as strong, so overall I would be inclined to think they’re way above the level they’re at.

‘I think they’ll come through their first round game [against Offaly] and they won’t have enough for Dublin, but they could do damage in the qualifiers.

‘For our point of view our performance looked lethargic and the intensity wasn’t there, you could even see that in the GPS stats, our numbers were way down. It’s one of those days you have to write off.

‘I’m not looking to make excuses but we had fellas in new positions, but Derek Maguire has been playing that holding role and it will be new to the fellas coming in there and for those lads that were used to playing alongside him.

‘Andy’s a big loss too and we also had lads coming in that needed game time.’

However, Kelly isn’t contemplating changing the system on the back of Maguire’s departure and vowed that the Reds will put things right on Sunday week.

‘I’d have the utmost trust in these lads and they know what they did today wasn’t good enough and we’ll see a different Louth side in two weeks,’ he added.