In the first of a four-part series to mark the 10th anniversary of Louth’s infamous Leinster Championship campaign, talks to Peter McDonnell about that ill-fated summer

Savage

AS May drew to a close and the school holidays beckoned, a summer without the pressures of football management lay tantalisingly in front of Mullaghabawn NS principal Peter McDonnell.

Little did the former Armagh boss know that those idyllic plans would be torn asunder by a fairly random phonecall to his school from an old friend - Martin McQuillan.

A lifetime ago, the pair had gone to school together, ran together and played football together, but this call was a bolt from the blue.

McDonnell was on a self-imposed break from the game after two seasons in charge of Armagh, and was looking forward to spending time with his young family and simply ‘finding his head’ again.

McQuillan was part of Peter Fitzpatrick’s backroom team in Louth and after scoring a very healthy 12-71 in the National League, but ending the campaign with a score difference of just +8, they were concerned about their defence.

Former Armagh ‘keeper Benny Tierney advised McQuillan to reach out to McDonnell.

‘He put it to me that they were very concerned about Louth’s ability to defend heading into the Championship and he asked me for my feelings on how to go about improving a defence,’ McDonnell recalls, 10 years on from that emotional roller-coaster of a summer.

So I asked did he mean individually, as in man-marking and tackling, or the collective defensive system. I also asked him where did he want the defence to start from. And I remember he just replied, ‘Ach for God sake, will you just come up and see us’.

‘So he convinced me to come up to Darver and at that stage they were changing in Portacabins because they were waiting on the second fix to the main building. So in we went to one of the portacabins with Fitzer, Gerry Cumiskey, Martin and Tony Reynolds. Fizter just asked me straight out, ‘So Peter, how do we fix this defence?’

‘Now that’s a big question, but first and foremost I said I didn’t know any of the personnel. I knew of Paddy Keenan of course, he was known the length and breadth of the country, and I’d heard of JP Rooney and Aaron Hoey and a few more. But that was about the sum of my knowledge when it came to Louth football. But Fitzer said, ‘will you come out and have a look?’

Towards the end of the session McDonnell was perched on the bank overlooking the ‘second’ pitch in Darver watching a full-blown training match.

Something stuck out like a sore thumb - and it wasn’t the defence.

‘Time and time again the inside forwards like JP, Shane Lennon and Colm Judge were all making very clever, well-timed runs, but the lads out the field were taking a toe-tap or a bounce and the opportunity was gone. It wasn’t just one or two lads, it was the whole team, and to me it was so glaring. The ball going in was always too late.

‘When the session was over Fitzer introduced me to the players and asked me to say a few words on what I thought. So I mentioned that point and said, ‘look, the ability to kick the ball in is there; the ability to make the runs and win the ball inside is definitely there, so just cut out the bounces and toe-taps and look for that early pass’.

‘And that was my sole contribution. I got back in my car and drove home, thinking I had done Martin the favour he asked.’

But McDonnell was already on Fitzer’s hook - he just didn’t realise it yet!

A few days later Louth stumbled past Longford in Portlaoise and then the call came to join the management team as a coach/ selector.

Perhaps it was the prospect of a summer kicking his heels, or the fact that Kieran McGeeney’s Kildare were awaiting Louth in the quarter-final, but either way, McDonnell was reeled in.

‘The next hurdle was Kildare and that was a meaty prospect,’ he says. ‘They had a high-profile team, a high-profile manager and made huge investment into the county team. We had a group of players who might have well been prepared to tip their hat to Kildare and let them on their merry way, but to me it was a coach’s dream to play Kildare at that time because they hadn’t a clue how to play football.

‘If you took a freeze frame

John

on the DVD footage of Kildare at that time there could be anything up to 13 players in that one small area of the pitch. They went forward in huge numbers and tried to come back in huge numbers, and if some gobshite on the opposing team held the ball for even half a second too long they would smoke him out very effectively.

‘But what that system also did was give Louth multiple opportunities to get at them if they just got their heads up and used the space and that’s exactly what they did. I remember young Andy McDonnell, who was only a child at the time, getting the ball in acres of space every time. He was very light, but wonderfully skilful, and he just ran away from very physical and seasoned Kildare players.

‘That win was so good for the team, it instilled a confidence that they could go out and take on anyone.’

McDonnell felt the aura of Croke Park and the psychological barrier of winning a Leinster semi-final posed a bigger threat to Louth in the semi-final than their actual opponents Westmeath.

‘It was Croke Park and we wanted to take the mystique out of that. I suggested going up there beforehand and we told the players to look in every cupboard, check around every corner because when we come back here we’re coming to win a game of football.

‘Westmeath were a funny kind of team, they were all about be lief. If they got in front they could punish you, but to me they were a team that waited on the opposition to tell them whether they could win the game. It wasn’t as convincing as the Kildare game, but Louth were good value for it and seeing the joy on the face of Charlie McAllister that day would do your heart good.’

An old story goes that after the game McDonnell was in the dressing room trying to bring the players back down to earth, using all the old cliches that they had won nothing yet. His words had started to have the desired effect and a sense of calm had been restored when Fitzer burst through the door singing ‘Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole.’

McDonnell didn’t offer up that story, but he confirms it happened, and insists it was classic Fitzer.

‘He is such a positive character. I am awestruck by some of the things he does and I mean that in the most positive way. He’s such an optimist. I remember win, lose or draw he’d pack his bag in the dressing room, tell the lads he’d see them Tuesday and head off out of the ground mixing with the supporters. He’s someone who genuinely has a desire to do the right thing in everything he does.

‘And Louth had super players. From Neil Gallagher in goals, Dessie Finnegan, Ronan Greene, Mick Fanning, Eamon McAuley. I don’t know where Eamon came from or went since, but he played the football of his life that summer. Paddy Keenan of course was the creme de la