OUTGUNNED, OUTCLASSED AND DOOMED TO DIVISION 4
THE passage of time didn’t help to close the huge gulf in class, as Cork sealed promotion and doomed Louth to Division 4 in a hopelessly one-sided contest at a beautifully re-vamped Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
Seven months later than billed, the hosts nonetheless went into the game on the back of five straight wins, while the visitors were pointless from the same number of outings.
It was soon clear why.
By the 25th minute, the Rebels were out of sight, 3-6 to 0-2 up and cruising back to Division 2 - still a rung below where they truly ought to be, mind you.
The 3-6 came without reply, as it was Louth who opened a 0-2 to no score lead through Sam Mulroy and Anthony Williams, but it all went hurtling downhill from there.
The goals arrived almost on demand in the 8th, 21st and 24th minutes as Colm O’Callaghan, Ian MaGuire and Paul Kerrigan punished Louth’s defensive naivety.
The lengthy hiatus perhaps lulled us into a false sense of optimism, but last time out this Louth team shipped 3-14 on home soil in an eight-point defeat to lowly Leitrim, so a drubbing from table-toppers Cork was hardly a big surprise.
For Louth fans there was a silver lining to the massacre taking place behind closed doors, but it still must have made for painful viewing on GAAGO.
There wasn’t even a brief late rally by the away side, just death by a thousand cuts to a far superior force.
That 13-point deficit on 25 minutes did come down to 10 at half-time, 3-9 to 0-8, but it was all moot.
Cork showed in that opening half that they could breach Louth’s defensive lines when the mood suited them and they continued where they left off after the break.
The second-half was less than five minutes old when Kerrigan netted goal number four and Cork had already tagged on a couple of points in the early minutes, so they were now a whopping 15 ahead, 4-11 to 0-9. It says a lot about Cork’s current situation that they were able to introduce a player of Mark Collins’ calibre from the bench and he duly helped himself to a goal and five points. He arrived on the scene just as Fergal Donohoe was receiving his marching orders for a sec- ond bookable offence, making Louth’s forlorn task even more arduous.
Collins bagged Cork’s fifth goal on 55 minutes, putting 17 points between the sides, 5-14 to 0-12.
Conall McKeever rattled the crossbar on one of the rare occasions Louth stretched the Cork defence and they kicked three points without reply during a welcome respite from the Cork onslaughts.
But that spell was ended by another red card as Patrick Reilly picked up his second yellow to reduce the visitors to 13 men.
If
Donohoe and Reilly were victims of Cork’s relentless pressure, which inevitably led to fouls and cards, Emmet Carolan’s late dismissal was a fully warranted straight red and could spell the end of his season.
The Newtown Blues man will certainly miss the Down game, but his suspension is likely to be extended to two games, which would also rule him out of the Championship opener against Longford.
If finishing with 12 men wasn’t bad enough, Cork continued to rub salt in Louth wounds in the closing stages and no-one could say the Rebels didn’t deserve to win by 18.
That was double their previous highest win over Leitrim and it’s also worth noting that they only won their last two games before the pandemic by one and two points against Tipperary and Derry respectively.
That doesn’t bode well for Louth, who really did look in a sorry state by the time Seamus Mulhare put everyone out of their misery.
To clutch at a few tenuous straws, Sam Mulroy’s free-taking was sublime as he continued his remarkable club-championship form, while Ciaran
Keenan and Conor Whelan made bright late cameos, albeit at a stage in the game when Cork had eased back to first gear.
But the bigger picture is worrying, to say the least.
For the second time in three seasons Louth look likely to go through a full League campaign without picking up a point. The last one was in Division 2, but this time it’s the third tier.
Which means for the second time in five years the team will ply its trade in Division 4 in 2021 - a very concerning trend in its own right.
Wayne Kierans did make a few decent additions to his squad since the inter-county season resumed, but Ciaran and Declan Byrne and Ciaran Downey have joined Andy McDonnell, Jim McEneaney and Derek Maguire in the inter-county wilderness.
Kierans was part of the last winless campaign under Pete McGrath when confidence was on the floor and important players started to drift away, so he’ll be under no illusions about where this might be headed.
To a large extent, that’s all out of his control.
For now all he can do is attempt to pick his players up for next week’s clash with Down and try to salvage a bit of pride and confidence ahead of the Leinster Championship clash with Longford on Sunday week.
Kierans knows as well as anyone that Louth’s problems run a lot deeper than who wears the senior bainisteoir bib.
It’s high time we started to dig a lot deeper for solutions.
CORK: Michael Martin; Kevin Flahive, Maurice Shanley, Paul Ring; Kevin O’Donovan 0-2, Mattie Taylor, Cian Kiely; Ian MaGuire 1-0, Paul Walsh 0-2; Ruairi Deane 0-1, Killian O’Hanlon 0-4 (1f), Kevin O’Driscoll; Damien Gore 0-2, Colm O’Callaghan 1-1, Paul Kerrigan 2-1 (1f). Subs: Nathan Walsh for P Ring (43), Mark Collins 1-5 (3f, 1mk) for P Kerrigan (44), Eoghan McSweeney 0-1 for Kevin O’Driscoll (52), Niall Hartnett for P Walsh (57), Sean Meehan for K O’Hanlon (59).
LOUTH: Craig Lynch; Dan Corcoran, Bevan Duffy, Kevin Carr; Frgal Donohoe, Emme Carolan, Anthony Williams 0-1; Tommy Durnin 0-3 (1mk), Conor Early; Conall McKeever, Robbie Curran, Liam Jackson; Patrick Reilly, Sam Mulroy 0-11 (10f, 1mk), Ryan Burns. Subs: Ciaran Keenan for R Curran (ht), John Clutterbuck for K Carr (43), Conor Whelan 0-1 for R Burns (52), Dermot Campbell for C Early (54), Gerry Garland for C McKeever (62). REFEREE: Seamus Mulhare (Laois)