Inside Track: Aaron’s selection a huge boost to Louth hurling

Making it on to a select 15 is nothing new to Sam Mulroy. He was named on the best National League team of the 2023 campaign, and already this season has been chosen on the team of the day on successive Sundays.

Those teams were the choice of RTE television’s Sunday Game pundits, all of whom would have come together to pick the 2023 team.

It’s fair to say that if the Railway Cup interprovincial series was still a regular on the schedule, the Naomh Máirtín talisman would be nailed on for this year’s team and others in the recent past.

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Mulroy didn’t make it on to the most prized of all teams, the All-Stars, but he went close, himself Tommy Durnin, Donal McKenny and Craig Lennon getting a nomination, with the latter deservedly winning a gong.

Such honours, as we said, are nothing new to the county football team captain, but what about hurler, Aaron McGuinness getting recognition?

The young Naomh Moninne clubman has been hugely influential in Louth currently sitting top of the table in their section of the National League.

He had a particularly fine outing in last Sunday week’s meeting with Lancashire, and by taking both points for this outing, Louth sit on top of the Division Four table, looking good to win a place in the final and the promotion that goes with it.

To add credence to McGuinness’s achievement, the team he was selected on covered all divisions, and on that weekend, all the game’s heavyweights were in action, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, Clare and the likes.

Around him in defence, the Louth player had such luminaries as Clare’s Eibhear Quilligan and Limerick’s Barry Nash, with another Clare player, Tony Kelly, and Cork’s best, Patrick Horgan in attack.

There’s a strong hurling history in the McGuinness family. Jim, Aaron’s grandfather, was an All-Ireland junior championship winner with Louth, and, like Maurice Murphy, who led the tributes to Aaron at a recent County Board meeting, has given the Naomh Moninne club outstanding service over the years.