Ryan Burns admits promotion was always on Louth Footballer's minds

Ryan Burns was a popular man come the final whistle in Ardee last Sunday. After Louth’s heroics in defeating Cork, the selfie hunters were keen to add the attacker to their collection.

In between these many photo ops, he found time to reflect on the vital goal he got just before half time. A strike which turned the game on it's head, having endured a Cork purple patch of scoring that saw them go 0-7 to 0-2 in front prior to raising the green flag.

“The penalty didn’t go into the back of the net but the rebound did, so it was real heart in the mouth stuff for a few moments” he recalled when speaking exclusively to the Democrat. “But I always had the toes to react to any rebound and I’m delighted that I hit the target eventually.

“We know Ardee better that any other county coming here. When the breeze is blowing it is tough conditions to play into. We knew to plug away. Cork kicked a few nice scores, and we probably could’ve done better to prevent them.

“The goal was then important to keep us in it before half time, then we kicked a couple more too and we knew then that we had the momentum come the second half.”

Louth dictated much of the first half as they recorded what was a fourth win in succession. With relegation as good as off the table prior to the game it would be easy to call it a day and prepare foe the upcoming championship.

But Burns recalled how they always had loftier ambitions, with that chance of playing football in the top come 2023 another huge motivating factor.

Now they are set for a winner takes all clash with Dublin this Sunday in Croke Park (Throw in 2PM), one which the Hunterstown Rovers clubman is eagerly awaiting.

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“The management are very good at keeping us grounded, taking it each game at a time" he noted.

"Without saying it, we were pretty much safe after the last round with the win over Kildare and we just kind of moved onto this one.

“We asked ourselves where we want to be, looked at ourselves and said we want to be going into next week with a chance of playing Division 1 football. Thank God it worked out that way today.

"We’ll be brought down to earth as always and we will refocus on the next game. Weather we won today, lost or drawn against Cork, we're going to play Dublin next week anyways. We will have our gameplan and we’ll see how that goes in Croker."