Louth manager Colin Kelly hoping to continue Wee revival in Leinster
Wee revival can continue with victory over Meath
Under Kelly they secured a second successive promotion
AS is so often the case with the Louth footballers, it was a low-key affair at Parnell Park last week as they did just enough to see off the challenge of Wicklow in their Leinster SFC opener.
The game was only broadcast on local radio and there were plenty of empty seats available in the Dublin 5 venue, although not quite as many as there were for April’s Division 3 National League final when the Wee County lost to Tipperary in front of around 77,000 unoccupied seats on a day four counties graced the Croke Park turf.
There was no shame in defeat to a Tipperary team that lit up last year’s Championship, but the low turnout for the Wicklow tie wasn’t, perhaps, quite the encouragment they needed as they attempt to bridge the mammoth gap between Leinster’s chasing pack and AllIreland champions Dublin.
Despite the massive challenges facing them, Louth are undoubtedly on the up. Their resurgence has come under the guidance of former star forward turned manager Colin Kelly, who took over from Aidan O’Rourke in difficult circumstances in October 2014.
Kelly is a Louth man throughand-through, a teenage sensation who was tipped to go far from a young age after excelling with both the O’Raghallaighs and Newtown Blues clubs in Drogheda before making his name as a supremely talented forward despite suffering a broken leg in the early years of his inter-county career.
He has displayed that same resilience as a manager. Just a month before he took the job, Louth lost their first All- Star winner, Paddy Keenan, to retirement at the age of just 29.
Ten-year veteran Shane Lennon (another former prodigy whose exposure to too much football at a young age took its toll) soon followed suit, joining the Finnegan brothers, Ray and Dessie, while another experienced head in Darren Clarke had called time the previous April amid rumours that his relationship with O’Rourke’s management team had become strained. There were others, too.
Consequently, it was a testing first few seasons in charge for Kelly, the loss of so much experience leading to successive League relegations as Louth plummeted from Division 2 to the bottom tier while also suffering heavy qualifier defeats in his first two Championship campaigns.
Despite hitting rock bottom, though, he stuck with the task at hand and has finally restored a feel good factor around the county.
Last year saw Louth land some silverware as they earned promotion back to Division 3, although their summer ended with a first-round qualifier exit to Derry.
Already working with limited resources, Kelly then lost the county’s 2016 Senior Footballer of the Year, Derek Maguire, who decided to head for a summer in USA. Derek Crilly and Andy McDonnell also walked away but have since returned to boost their chances this summer, the 60th anniversary of Louth’s most recent All-Ireland SFC success.
Yet, rather than allow his side to wallow in those disappointments Kelly’s guiding hand has seen the Wee County kick on to secure a second successive promotion playing an attractive running style with a smattering of new recruits. It means Louth will be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Cork, Clare and Roscommon in Division 2 next spring, exactly the type of regular competition needed if they are to carry promising spring form into the summer months.
The achievement of lifting Louth back up the pecking order is no mean feat given the troublesome circumstances the county found itself in prior to his appointment.
His predecessor O’Rourke stepped down after completing just two years of a three-year term following a hugely disappointing season in which he publicly expressed his concerns about the mindset that existed among the team and its supporters.
‘Louth are unique,’ O’Rourke said. ‘There is a certain mindset that exists within the county. They don’t expect to do well, they don’t expect to excel or to exceed expectation so that kind of does permeate minds. So much of the work we have to do is to recalibrate their own expectations. They don’t realise how talented they are.’
Under Kelly, however, they are beginning to realise it. This week, Louth return to Parnell Park for a Leinster quarter-final against Meath full of belief that they can get the better of their arch-rivals and book a Leinster semi-final date.
There are plenty of eager eyes on this one. Stand tickets are already sold out and the pressure is all on Meath, which will feed right into the hands of a Louth team whose supporters still carry a sense of injustice following the former’s controversial 2010 Leinster final win.
‘We’ll probably go into that (Meath) match with the same underdogs tag as Wicklow had,’ Kelly said following their first round win. ‘We’ll be comfortable with that.’
The truth is, given their recent rise there is no reason why a Louth win should be seen as a major upset.
Meath arrive following a mixed Division 2 campaign in which they failed to gain promotion and suffered disappointing defeats to Kildare and Cork, with manager Andy McEntee only a few short months into the job and tasked with restoring some confidence into a county who have seen their status slowly slip over the last number of years.
Kelly and Co, on the other hand, are showing good form with Championship football already under their belt and a manager who has had the time work with his players and intil belief.
The sounds coming out of the Louth camp now are very different to those that rang out during O’Rourke’s reign.
‘Where it has come from a few years ago to where it is now, it is a much happier environment,’ insisted Kelly earlier in the year.
‘Lads have really stepped up to the mark. They have become leaders, the group has developed into a tight knit bunch and they’ve won more games than they’ve lost in the past 18 months.
‘The first year was torrid, there is no point in getting away from that, [but] falling into Division 4 mightn’t have been the worst thing that ever happened to us. It gave us a chance to regroup.’
It’s not all been plain sailing, however, with Kelly’s future reportedly in doubt at one stage due to the contents of a letter he sent to the Louth Management Committee expressing concerns about some aspects of the organisation around the senior set-up.
They should be thankful that, like so many more before him, he cares so much. Given how far he’s managed to steer his young team already, brought already, losing him would be detrimental to their attempts to become a competitive force again.
Victory over Meath on Sunday would only serve to further underscore the fact.