Discipline still not a big issue

STAND-IN ‘Bainisteoir’ Liam Kelleher could hardly have imagined a more dramatic or satisfactory start to his new role and he was quick to heap praise on the players after Sunday’s last-gasp win over Offaly.

A 12-week ban for manager Wayne Kierans catapulted Kelleher into the media limelight after Sunday’s smash-and-grab win, but while may be a slight bit reluctant with that aspect of the job, the Dreadnots man wasn’t fazed.

‘The lads kept plugging away and I felt they got what they deserved because they’re putting in tremendous effort in Darver and you saw today, the 75th minute, with 13 men, they still pressed. We’ll take the win.

‘It was a great goal,’ he joked. ‘We asked the Offaly full-back to slip it by the ‘keeper and he duly obliged… but, in fairness, the workrate of Sam Mulroy and Ross Nally to put him under that pressure was what gave us the goal. We’ll take the luck, I think we deserve a bit of luck because I don’t think some of the other decisions went for us. We’re just happy to win in those conditions.’

The stand-in boss agreed that Sam Mulroy was instrumental in Louth’s success.

‘Sam was unfortunately unavailable for the first game because of an Achilles tendon injury, but he was excellent last week and he followed it up with an assured performance today. He’s young, eager to impress and he has another 10 years of inter-county football ahead of him hopefully.’

If there has been one negative to Louth’s solid start to the campaign it’s been the number of red and black cards accumulated over the three games, but while Kelleher says it’s something they will address in-house, it’s not an issue they are too concerned about.

‘We have spoken to the players on a couple of occasions regarding it (discipline). We don’t send them out to get sent off. I don’t think there is a discipline issue in the squad, maybe some young lads are a little over-eager and retaliate a little bit quicker.

‘ It’s something that over the next couple of months and years, as they get more experience, they may be a little bit more reluctant to retaliate. If you watch the three matches and a couple of the situations, we maybe haven’t always got the decisions we deserve.

‘When everyone was talking about the three handpass rule, I kept raising the sin-bin. That is the most devious rule of the lot because you’re down to 14 men for 10 minutes; that’s critical. And it’s harsh, you must remember that the adrenaline is pumping in these lads during a game and sometimes I think the referees can be a little bit too harsh.

‘We’ll have to address those discipline issues, address not speaking back to referees, but, overall, I’m certainly not going to give out to our lads about their performances in matches,’ he added.