LOUTH BACK IN LEINSTER FINAL
WHEN Conor Grimes was ushered towards the interview area after Louth’s Leinster semi-final victory over Kildare, Mickey Harte and his departure as senior football team manager last September was referred to by the person asking questions almost immediately.
On the way out of Croke Park that evening, Bob Doheny, the county secretary, was sought on the phone and before the Tipperary-native could even get a word in, he was informed that yours truly was placing a moratorium on the former Wee county boss being mentioned over the fortnight leading into Sunday’s provincial final against Dublin.
A note to all non-Louth people across the country: GAA existed in this part of the country long before Harte arrived and continues to thrive since his departure. While the Tyrone man did raise us from Division 4 to 2 – a feat Colin Kelly, one of our own, achieved midway through the last decade – and oversaw a tophalf finish in the second tier – something which has been matched many times over, including when Peter Fitzpatrick was at the helm in 2012 – it was not as if his decision to walk away was going to automatically cripple the beams underpinning Gaelic games in the county.
Harte’s biggest success was in introducing a level of professionalism and training culture that has raised the games of each and every player involved in the set-up. Just because he was, and is, no longer here doesn’t mean that lessons haven’t been learned.
It just seems that coverage of Louth, across the board, is lazy. Last year, when Ciarán Downey shot the lights out against Offaly in the Leinster semi-final, when discussing the Newtown Blues clubman’s performance on the Second Captains podcast, it was as though analyst Paul Flynn had never seen, heard or known about Downey’s exquisite skillset beforehand, despite the 26-year-old having been around the block since 2018.
Cora Staunton was speaking about Louth recently on The Sunday Game, post the Wexford outing, and it was as if the only player she knew was Sam Mulroy. Then again, in the national press, it’s as if he is our one and only player. Talk about Louth – ‘well, Sam Mulroy this and Sam Mulroy that’.
Grand, the captain is Louth’s best-known player for a reason and his scoring has been phenomenal in recent seasons but did any of these pundits care to check out last year’s National League, when Louth challenged for promotion? If they had, they would see that the skipper was injured for a good portion of it, meaning there must be others who are fairly decent.
In his Breheny Beat column published in the Irish Independent the week after Derry’s implosion against Donegal, Martin Breheny exposed just how limited knowledge of Louth is, and was even when Harte held the reins.
He wrote in relation to Derry goalkeeper Odhrán Lynch: “I thought his wandering days would be curtailed when Harte, a man for whom defensive pragmatism was a tactical bedrock in his successful Tyrone, arrived – but it didn’t happen.
“There are two possible reasons why Harte stuck with the ‘Lynch Tours’. One: he didn’t want to disrupt what had become an embedded strategy in case it upset the players. Two: he believed it came under the ‘football has evolved’ heading, a catch-all description beloved of spoofers. If evolution involves goalkeeper copycats prowling – usually aimlessly – upfield then the definition needs to be changed.
“Harte is certainly no spoofer, so it’s difficult to understand why he bought a ticket for ‘Lynch Tours’.
Louth didn’t select the best goalkeeper in the county, which Niall McDonnell has proven himself to be under Ger Brennan, because Harte wanted a roaming net-minder and put outfielders between the posts as a result – Declan Byrne, Peter McStravick and especially James Califf. While, in Tyrone, he had Niall Morgan, a man who plays his club football out the field.
And for Louth’s use of the sweeper ’keeper to not have been acknowledged in this regard is crazy as it’s not as if they have been loitering in Division 4 or off the television screens in recent years.
Both The Sunday World and Daily Mail on Sunday decided that Kildare’s greater need for victory – in order to secure a spot in the All-Ireland series – would sway the result of the Leinster semi-final their way. Fair enough.
Yet Pat Spillane, clearly still casting judgement based on a Louth side he saw get demolished by Cork at Páirc Uí Chaoimh during Covid, went a step further, saying that all logic indicated a victory for the Reds but that, for no apparent reason, he was going for Kildare.
Several other pieces with Louth players over recent weeks have sought to mention Harte, him leaving and how everyone felt their bottom would melt as a consequence. All utter nonsense.
On the way to Armagh for the first National League match this season, two RTÉ Sport pundits – I can only think of one so I’ll not mention names – said that Louth and Fermanagh would be relegated. The reason: Mickey Harte was gone.
Why is there such a dismissive attitude towards Louth compared with, say, Westmeath? Last year, Off The Ball’s Tommy Rooney spent the early part of the season claiming that the Lake county were the second best team in Leinster. This is a side who hadn’t been in the All-Ireland series the year beforehand and subsequently failed to get up from Division 3. Louth had beaten them in the National League in 2022 and comfortably so.
They won the Tailteann Cup being the reason behind the claim. Yeah, the second tier competition which Louth couldn’t even participate in having qualified for the Sam Maguire series.
All of this may come across as cribbing about nothing but it is infuriating for those who know the players Wee have and how they match-up against the various counties for the analysis to be so tokenistic and shallow.
Louth supporters pay their licence, membership and cover fees like GAA people across the country. The least they deserve is coverage that is educated, meaningful and, most important of all, accurate.
GAA EXISTED IN THIS PART OF THE COUNTRY LONG BEFORE HARTE ARRIVED AND CONTINUES TO THRIVE