Impact sub McEneaney insists there’s room for improvement

SOMETIMES the result is all that matters, but with a derby date with Meath coming hot on the heels of Sunday’s win over Wicklow, Jim McEeaney insists that a repeat performance won’t be good enough to cause an upset.

‘We are going to be back here in two weeks and that’s what we came here for by hook or by crook, so we’d be happy enough with the result.

‘But looking at the performance on it’s own it would not be good enough against Meath.

‘We have two weeks now of hard training to try and get ourselves right and make sure we get out of the blocks quicker and sustain it over 70 minutes.’

The respective league performances saw Louth installed as hot favourites on Sunday, but McEneaney wasn’t one bit surprised at what Wicklow brought to the table.

‘It’s the Leinster Championship so regardless of league performances you put whatever you’ve done behind you. They were going to be doing the same whether it was good for us and bad for them or the other way around. A lot of teams put their eggs into one basket in the Championship so we knew they were going to come flat out at it. So it shouldn’t have caught us by surprise, and I don’t think it did, but our performance just wasn’t good enough.’

McEneaney doesn’t feel that injuries and Derek Maguire’s absence should have contributed to below-par display.

‘It shouldn’t. I mean everyone got a chance to go back to their clubs and refresh the batteries and come back in and everyone was pushing hard for a place. The fifteen lads that started, everyone knew what their job was so it shouldn’t have lacked any cohesion because of that, so I don’t think that should have been an issue.’

It wasn’t a vintage display by any means, but McEneaney felt that Bevan Duffy and Tommy Durnin certainly did carry the fight to Wicklow

‘The lads are just phenomenal, we’re trying to shut down on short kick outs and stuff and you know you are always going to be confident that if you are doing that and they are throwing the ball out long that the chances are the boys out there are going to be able to compete and win a lot of ball. There was a good few marks made there in the last 15-20 minutes and that really helped us and stopped their momentum. So the boys in the middle were very important.’

No-one dared speak of Meath before Wicklow were dispatched, but the focus will be now be squarely on the Royals.

Meath were worthy winners last year, but McEneaney feels Louth will be focusing on addressing their own shortcomings, than worrying about revenge.

‘It will be dead on 12 months that we played them here. We are going out of here winners today but we remember that feeling 12 months ago when we had lost to them.

‘The most disappointing aspect of last year was the fact that we didn’t play, never mind the result. We didn’t acquit ourselves the way we would have liked so we have two weeks now to get ready for that and I don’t think anyone will be found wanting.’

Meath appeared to hit on some form towards the end of the National League and were in with a shout of promotion to Division 1, but McEneaney insists Louth have to focus on themselves.

‘You hear all sorts of stories between the end of the league and championship so you don’t know what amount of it is hyperbole or what the craic is, but we have to look at our own set up and make sure we have our hard work done and focus on what we can do.’

Obviously McEneaney would love to get the nod from the start against Meath, but he insists all he can do is keep his head down do whatever is asked of him on the day.

‘It’s not up to me. Everyone is pushing hard there and it is a tough team to pick so you are only ever thinking about what you can do, whether that is from the start, half time last fifteen or whatever. That was our job today. You just have to focus on what you can do.’

McEneaney agreed that relief was the main emotion leaving Parnell Park, but he insisted that the players won’t be dwelling on it.

‘We’ll think about this game for the next twenty minutes and then that’ll be it parked and then it’s thirteen days and whatever amount of hours ‘til we play Meath,’ he added.