Early cup exit highlights weakness in masterplan

AS I sat down to pen my first column of the New Year, Louth’s interest in the 2018 O’Byrne Cup has already expired. The year is barely one week old, but the season’s first competition has packed up and moved on.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was never a great admirer of this early-season competition, but in 2017 it represented one third of Louth’s entire competitive fixture programme.

Although Dublin cut loose on us in the second half of last year’s final in Drogheda, the O’Byrne Cup provided former manager Colin Kelly and his players an excellent platform to hit the ground running in Division 3 of the National League, which ultimately led to promotion.

New manager Pete McGrath (right) I’m sure would have preferred an extended run of competitive games in advance of our Division 2 league opener against Down in Drogheda on January 28th. Instead he’ll be forced to arrange meaningless challenge games, which in my opinion don’t really help anybody.

In 2017 we played 16 competitive games, with the breakdown as follows: 5 O’Byrne Cup, 8 National League (including the final v Tipp) and three Championship.

This season, in a worst-case scenario, Louth will tog out competitively 11 times. Most players have been busting a gut since November, but they might have only nine more occasions to showcase their talents in 2018. Seven of those possible nine games will be completed before the end of March. And this is the new amended GAA fixture masterplan whichhich is to benefit the club and county ounty game throughout out the country?

And what about the loyal l supporters? The masterplan doesn’t smack of any consideration to encourage parents to bring g young children n to see their local cal heroes and to aspire to follow those heroes to line out in their county colours.

The powers that be in Croke Park either have their heads buried in the ground or are simply choosing to ignore the game in the weaker counties counties, but the water in the dam in rising fasfast and will soon sspill out over the totop. This yea year could be a wa watershed. Getting ba back to the foo football pitc pitch, Pete McG McGrath’s char charges began the weweek with a disappoi disappointing result against LongLongford but followed it with an excellent performance down in Hawkfield with a win over Kildare.

As you’d expect, there are plenty of fresh faces on the panel and many of the newcomers have already staked a place for inclusion in the starting line-up for the National League. Tullyallen pair James Butler and Ronan Grufferty, along with Aaron Khan (St Kevin’s) and James Craven (Geraldines) have impressed. Kilkerley’s Tadhg McEnenaney has also shown glimpses that he could be maturing into a real score-getter at this level.

I’m delighted to see Willie Woods back in the side and hopefully he can get an extended run to deliver on his undoubted talent. The SSE Airtricity League kicks off next month. With 36 games in the Premier due to the change to a 10-team league, the season will start on February 16th, whilst the First Division - with 27 games - will begin a week later.

Dundalk welcome Bray to Oriel Park for their opening fixture, while Drogheda also start with a home game against Finn Harps. Dundalk will be hoping to wrestle back the title from last year’s winners Cork City, while Drogheda will be anxious to bounce back from relegation.

Both teams have undergone significant changes over the close season and it will be interesting to see how they get on.