Young Reds relishing trip to lion’s den
AS Leinster Championship openers go it doesn’t get much more daunting than the Dubs in Parnell Park, but joint Louth boss Tom Rooney insists his players are under no pressure heading to Donnycarney.
Win, lose or draw the Reds have four more games after Monday’s clash with the Jacks and Rooney is confident they make an impact under the new format.
‘It’s great for the players to start with Dublin in Parnell Park, but more so that it’s the first of five championship matches and you’d have to commend Leinster for that. It’s not just one game in the championship and one in the back door, you’re guaranteed a minimum five games and even if you don’t qualify for the Leinster semi-finals there’s a ‘B’ competition that the third and fourth placed teams qualify for.’
Leinster Council opted for a group stage format this season and Louth find themselves in the six-team section with neighbours Dublin and Meath and Tom admits the draw could gave been kinder.
‘Myself and Malcolm have been with this squad since U14 and we’ve played every team in it at this stage. There are three clear favourites, namely Dublin, Kildare and Meath. So we have two of the big three in our group in Dublin and Meath. That’s by no means dismissing Offaly, Wicklow or Westmeath, but Dublin, Meath and Kildare are traditionally very strong and I don’t think it will be any different this year.
‘It’s hard to gauge development [squad] football. From year to year or game to game you don’t really know if you’re facing the top 15 from a particular county because the idea is to develop 40 or 50 lads. Some of the counties would have been carrying very big numbers, so it’s hard to know exactly where you stand.’
But one thing is for certain - all the pressure is on Dublin this weekend, Tom insists:
‘All the expectation is on Dublin and there’s no expectation on Louth, so we’ll be hoping to work that to our advantage. But whatever happens, we’ll only win or lose two points in the Dublin game; by Monday evening there’ll still be eight points to play for.’
The reason Leinster were able to move to a group stage format was that the minor grade was reduced from U-18 to U-17 last year in an attempt to ease the pressure on Leaving Cert students and it has by-and-large worked in Louth’s case.
‘We’ve only three sitting the Leaving and a few more sitting the Junior, so they’ve got it pretty spot on from that point of view.
‘The new system also means there was no league, but you can’t have it every way and for me five or more championship games in May, June and July is much better than three league games in February or March and possibly only two championship matches.
I suppose the onus was on us to set up challenge matches early in the year, but we played Down, Armagh twice and Mongahan before the Ulster League started, then Kildare, Longford and Leitrim and we play Carlow in Monasterboice this week.
‘Challenge matches aren’t the real thing but they can be good because you can have a look at things without the result being too important.’
Louth have a few injury concerns heading into the campaign and again, the fact that there are four more games to come, will play a big part in determining who is risked against Dublin.
‘We have four who are nursing injuries, Patrick Murtagh, Finbar Lynch, Ruairi Hanlon and Patrick Johnston. They’d all be pushing for a jersey so we’ll have to see how things go this week. But I’ve told them this is about five games, not just Dublin and we have to be sensible about it.’
Rooney and McDonnell are happy with the squad they have settled on, but whittling it down to the 24 permitted on matchday is a major dilemma.
‘Our biggest quandary as a management team over the next few days will be settling on our starting 15 for and then naming the nine numbered subs. The reality is nine lads won’t get jerseys; it’ll be gut wrenching for them nine lads, but whatever we do over the five games will be down to the efforts of the full 33 over the course of the campaign.’
After Louth’s heroics under Wayne Kierans last summer, the current regime have a tough act to follow, but it will also be an inspiration.
They’ve a hard act to follow for sure, but that just showed them what’s possible. Our coach Hugh Lyons would have had last year’s panel as a development squad and he’s often said that there’s just as much, if not more, talent in this squad. What last year’s guys had in abundance though was an unwavering self-belief and an amazing work ethic and that can be just as important.’
Like last year’s set-up, the management duo are have left no stone unturned this term, putting together a strong backroom team.
‘Myself and Malcolm have been with them since U-14 and we have Hugh Lyons doing most of the hands-on coaching. He’s giving us three night and the Jocks [Naomh Mairtin] three nights so we really appreciate the time and effort he puts in.
‘They do their strength and conditioning with Aaron Rogers and this year we’ve brought in PJ McGrane from Glen Emmets doing video analysis and stats and Neil Gallagher is goalkeeping coach. Mark Rafferty is physio and I have to mention Liam Blundell from Statsports, who has helped us track the boys. It’s state-of-art equipment and it’s great to have.’
After facing Dublin on Monday at 3pm, Louth play Wicklow on 23rd May and Meath a week later on May 30th.