Inside Track: A Louth win over Kerry that’s not often recalled

Last week’s piece on Mick O’Dwyer has aroused some interest. How much exactly is difficult to ascertain.

Two queries have come in, and that’s two more than usual, which suggests my inbox is never cluttered, nor does the postman call very often with anything other than word from the bank, junk mail, or requests for help from worthy organisations. Cards come at Christmas.

Louth teams were in question. One e-mailer wanted to know the team that played against Kerry in the 1965 National League match, and another was looking for the one that lined in the corresponding match, twelve months later.

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Last week it was said that two points divided the sides at St Brigid’s Park, in ’65. In fact, there was just one in it, Louth scoring 12 times to Kerry’s nine.

Goals, however, made the difference. Kerry – just weeks after they’d been beaten by the three-in-a-row Galway team in the All-Ireland final – came in with two to go with their seven points, giving them the narrowest of wins.

The Louth team: Andy Kierans (Nh Mhuire); Jim Thornton (Cooley K), Joe Carroll (Dlk Gaels), Mick Sherlock (Mattock Rangers); Jack Maguire (St Fechin’s), Leslie Toal (Clan na Gael), Frank Clarke (Newtown Blues); Jimmy Mulroy (Newtown Blues), Tony Breen (Seán McDermott’s); Benny Gaughran (Clan na Gael), Mick McKeown (O’Rahilly’s), Liam Leech (Newtown Blues); Séamus Mohan (Nh Mhuire), Henry Donnelly (St Patrick’s), Paul Judge (Newtown Blues).

There were no changes over the hour, and Liam Leech was Louth’s top scorer with eight points.

Just three teams formed a group, and by failing to Kerry, and also to Meath in a previous match – two points dividing the sides at Páirc Tailteann – Louth’s sole win over Wicklow in the opening round wasn’t enough to qualify for the next stage of the competition.

However, the story was much different the following season. Playing against the same opposition, Louth beat Wicklow 3-9 to 1-6 in Aughrim, and then drew with Meath, a crowd of 6,000 turning up for the Drogheda match.

It was then down to Tralee for a set-to with Kerry. By now I was among the spectators – seemingly, I was considered not to have trained on after leaving my teenage years.

And with my apparent loss of form went my only chance of having an overnight stay in my 13 years of inter-county football.

Now they’re going to Spain and Portugal for pre-championship preparations, or – the one I love – “bonding” sessions.

By the end of a training campaign in our day, we’d be fed up looking at each other, and it sometimes showed when we afterwards went out to play against each other in club football.

The game in Tralee, with Mick O’Dwyer turning out for this one, was played in atrocious conditions, well into November.

Louth poached an early lead, and defended it dourly to record a significant 0-6 to 0 0-5 win. The scores came from Mickey Leech (2), Jimmy Mulroy (2), Liam Leech and Turlough McDonald one each.

The team showed a number of changes, positional and in personnel, from the previous year.

It read: Paddy Gallagher (Roche Emmets); Jack Maguire, Leslie Toal, Mick Sherlock; John Carolan (O’Rahilly’s), Jim Thornton, Frank Clarke; Mick McKeown, Frank Lynch (Geraldines); John Woods (Cooley Kickhams), Benny Gaughran, Liam Leech; Mickey Leech (O’Rahilly’s), Jimmy Mulroy, Paul Judge. Turlough McDonald (St Mary’s) came in as a reserve.

Louth went on the qualify for a semi-final meeting with Cavan at Croke Park – I was back as captain of the subs for this one – but went down by 2-9 to 0-12.

I made this point to one of my correspondents last week: There are two players mentioned above, Mick McKeown and Turlough McDonald, who, I honestly believe had they made themselves available at the time I was helping Jimmy Mulroy and Liam Leech run the Louth team, we’d have beaten the reigning All-Ireland title-holders, Offaly, in the 1973 championship semi-final, and could have go on to win the provincial title.

Both were gifted forwards whose careers were flourishing at the time. They could easily have turned a goal defeat into a win. McKeown returned in 1974 for a few years, and played a huge part in a couple of epic championship battles with Dublin.