LEINSTER SFC
ROYAL COMMAND PERFORMANCE AS MEATH SEE OFF LOUTH MEN
FOR Louth to upset the odds and record their first championship win over arch rivals Meath since 1975 they needed to successfully complete a bucket list of ‘must do’s’ and a high priority on that list was curbing the influence of Graham Reilly.
That they failed to do as the Meath captain produced a man-of-the-match performance, thus condemning the Wee County to the opening round of the qualifiers.
Reilly did come in for some ‘attention’ in the early stages but it failed to knock him off his game and he went on to hit seven points, all from play.
‘I live about five minutes from Drogheda so I knew I was going to get that,’ Reilly said afterwards. ‘Our philosophy is in one ear and out the other and my game was to keep my mouth shut, get on the ball, keep moving around. We are going to get the same against Kildare. They are going to be physical, we have serious pace up front so we won’t need to get involved with that.’
Overall the St Colmcille’s club man was happy with his sides display though he stressed that a step up on that performance will be needed to successfully negotiate the obstacle that Kildare will provide in the semi-final.
‘We are very happy with 27 scores, its a huge, huge scoreline. I don’t know how many goal chances we had, seven or eight, if we had taken the first one we would probably have got four or five. When we missed the first two or three it was kind of contagious the way it was happening but we will work on that big time for the next day.
‘We gave away three goals, the penalty, two kind of soft ones as well, I think at the end of the day we were 10 to 12 points a better team though. I think we responded well to all three Louth goals so that’s a big positive.
His own contribution went a long way towards seeing off Colin Kelly’s side and Reilly promised that there is much more in the tank.
‘We’d be happy with the scoring chances we created but we need to tighten up defensively going in against Kildare.
‘I don’t really look at what I scored, every player has a role and I tried to play mine to the best of my ability, lucky enough it went well for me today, it didn’t go so well for other lads. It could be someone else’s day the next day. I still have a long way to go with my fitness, I would say there is still another 20% in me. That is what I will be aiming for over the next number of weeks.
‘We have loads to work on, in the opening half today we were decent, that is how I would see it. We needed to play to a certain standard to win today but we have to go up another 20 to 30% to beat Kildare and obviously if we got to a Leinster final, to beat Dublin it would have to go through the roof, but that is what we are working towards. Today was all about getting a result and we racked up 27 scores so we have to be happy with that.
‘Louth already had a championship game under their belt, we have now and we will come on from that. We always target that if we are in a game in the last 10 minutes we have a chance. I wouldn’t imagine we will be winning by seven of eight points with 10 minutes to go against Kildare.’