McKeever admits Louth will have to improve
RETURNING Louth attacker Conall McKeever conceded that the Reds will have to up their game over the next few weeks after a less than inspiring start to Wayne Kierans’ competitive tenure on Saturday night.
‘It’s good to get started, but we’d be disappointed with the outcome and the performance which wouldn’t be up to the standards we set ourselves.
‘We had a few good moves in the second-half but we never seemed to get going. We got the goal at the start of the half which I thought might have given us a bit of a push, but we didn’t kick on from there.
‘Obviously the conditions weren’t ideal, and you’d like to think it will be better in the league and championship, but
at the end of the day we’ll have to up our workrate and make better decisions whatever the conditions.
‘Everyone wants to get a bit of game time no matter what time of the year it is, especially with a new manager coming in this year, and you have to try to impress.’
The Clans star didn’t think the new rules had a major impact on the game, but he feels the mark is something teams will be looking to take advantage of.
‘They had a goal disallowed for four handpasses and we had Tommy sin-binned but other than that there wasn’t a whole pile, a couple of marks. Burnsey got one or two and with blanket defences if you can get it in there and win it will take the pressure off because you have 15 seconds to put it over.
‘We played the rules against Meath and I don’t think anyone was too sure about them, but there in now and you have to work on them and adjust and deal it with it as best you can.’
From a personal point of view McKeever admitted it felt good to be back, but he says he still has work to do to get up to speed.
‘I’m just glad to be back and I need to get my fitness levels up and get as much game time as I can.
‘It wasn’t too bad for me this year because the Clans were out early and I got a bit of a break, but there are lads there who’ve only had a week or two weeks off and there back into it - but that’s the way it is.
‘Wayne’s really good and training has been great. It’s tough between Graham [Byrne], Wayne and Cathal [Murray], but it’s been very good so far. For me it will take a bit of time to get back up to this level, the games are faster and 10 minutes longer so it will take a bit of time.’
Louth have to beat Wicklow next weekend to have any hope of making the knockout stages and McKeever feels competitive games would be better than scratching around for challenge matches in January.
‘We want to get through to the knockout stages because if you do you’re out on the 12/13th January so that means you’re only waiting around for one weekend before the start of the league. We’ll be looking to improve the performance and the result anyway.’