Beginning for Louth

give them credit. They hung in there. They battled back and they got scores. I just think if we can cut down on the frees, cut down on the fouling...they’ve gotten a lot scores out there from frees today. I don’t know what the final tally was but they got a lot.’

The focus switches to the Nicky Rackard Cup now and O’Brien has seen nothing to suggest his team won’t be competitive there either.

‘Guess who we’re playing the first round of it? Good old Warwickshire, so that’s gonna be a ding-dong match. We have them at home in Darver in the first game and that’s gonna be a ding-dong match. But they’ll be quite ready for that as well.

‘We’ve competed with every team we’ve played this year bar Roscommon.

‘We were a very weak team against Roscommon. We were very unlucky in the Kehoe Cup. I felt we should have won the Kehoe Cup but we didn’t get to the final.

‘But we beat Longford in the next game in the league who were out to win the Kehoe Cup and we beat them well.

‘So we’ve competed in all our matches. We haven’t been beaten except by Roscommon since the league started, and today in Warwickshire. It’s the second time to play Warwickshire.

‘They drew with us in Darver early on. So you have to take all the positives. A puck of a ball is all that’s in it between us and Warwickshire here today.

‘Going into the championship, I’m hoping we can step it up a gear and the lads will get a bit of belief in themselves. Belief is the big thing.

‘Belief that you can win these games. Belief that you’re as good as the next man or the next team.’