Battle lost but ‘War’ is only just

PHILIP O’Brien insisted his players should hold no regrets after coming out on the wrong end of a cracking Division 3A decider against Warwickshire.

Louth let the Exiles pull away in the final moments of an absorbing contest, but despite the obvious disappointment of missing out on silverware and promotion, he insisted the Reds can attack the Nicky Rackard Cup with plenty of confidence and self belief.

‘I think it was a fantastic game of hurling. We came up short and we probably committed the cardinal sin near the end of committing a few fouls. They were deadly on the frees and I don’t think they missed one all day.’

But O’Brien sees a bright future for the Reds now that all of the best players in the county have committeed to the cause.

‘It was a fair task getting the best players in Louth to commit. They’ve done that this year, they’ve committed and they’ve put in a lot of hard work and they’ve got the reward.

‘They’ve got to a final. Nobody will have given them a chance at the beginning of the year of getting to a final. In fact, we were favourites to go down a division.

‘They’ve proven out there today hat there’s only a puck of a ball in it again, so they’ve proved that Louth hurling is alive and well.’

While he paid tribute to Louth’s more experienced players for committing to the cause O’Brien insisted the next challenge is to start bringing younger players through the ranks and he conceded that guys Niall Arthur can make all the difference.

‘When you have a player of Niall Arthur’s calibre and you give him the ball, he’s a man who’s a score-getter, you know.

‘The lads, they come from a different standard. Niall has won an All-Ireland medal with Clare Under 21s. They’re playing a different standard. So they bring that standard into the game in Louth as well.’

While goals in either half were more than welcome, O’Brien felt that had a third chance been converted in the final quarter, Louth might have well have gone on to win the game.

‘We probably should have scored a goal in the second half, it was a well-worked move. The keeper made a great save and that would have probably set us up rightly coming into the last 10 minutes or so.

‘It definitely would’ve put us in the driving seat. We were always going a point, two points up. But they hung in there. You have to