Kierans unhappy with lack of ‘buy-in’

WAYNE Kierans would be the first to admit that Louth weren’t good enough to emerge from their under-20 group following defeats to Carlow and Offaly, but a number of external factors still left a sour taste in the mouth as his troops exited the competition on Sunday.

The scheduling of the grade smack bang in the middle of senior championship season was always a risky ploy and a ban on collective training until April 1st made life even more difficult.

However, the Reds boss hinted that it was a lack of ‘buy-in’ from Louth clubs that hurt preparations most of all.

‘The first real constraint is the timing of the competition and that does not help, but we can only play when they tell us to. After that you want to prepare for as long and best you can, and we couldn’t prepare an inter-county team to the required standard in the circumstances we found ourselves in.

‘Club games and club training will not prepare you for that level. I would have thought that after our previous campaigns [at minor] that people would have trusted us to prepare their club players and make them even better for their club, but that didn’t happen.

‘It’s something that will have to be looked at because this is the bridge between minor and senior. This is how you have to bring players through and there’s no doubt we have players capable of going through, but they need to be exposed to this level more often and with better quality preparation.

‘Then another card you’re dealt from on high is that collective training can only start from April 1st. The rules are there and unless you’re prepared to bend them or the rules are changed it’s going to very difficult. But you need more preparation and you need the buyin for that preparation. You don’t want young men put in a situation where they feel they’re stuck between two stools, so it’s difficult.’

An early start on Sunday morning didn’t help matters as Louth were forced to hit the road shortly after 7am. The game had originally been fixed for Saturday, but was postponed as it coincided with the funeral of Conor Morgan, a contemporary of the Louth players and a friend to some of the squad.

‘It’s a totally separate situation to football, but it was tough on some of the lads. The fact that Offaly would only play it at 11 o’clock didn’t make it any easier. We were early on the road this morning, so it was another factor, but I’d be looking at other reasons such as why we didn’t get full backing from everybody.’

But Kierans could have no real complaints about events on the pitch as Offaly cruised to a comfortable win.

‘It’s disappointing overall there’s no doubt about that. I thought the performance the first day was okay, but the defending as a team was poor which was why we conceded a big score.

‘Today was all about the poor start, poor first-half. In the second-half we did improve and I think we won the second-half, but when you’re 14 points down at half-time you’re leaving yourself a mountain to climb and against any county team that’s very difficult.

‘Looking at the two games, the first one was good against a team we should be really competitive against and we were, but today in the first-half we were poor.

‘A wee bit better in the second-half, but that’s clutching at straws a bit because you’re 14 points down at half-time.’

GAA