Inside Track: Mary’s have more than Louth title in their sights

Inter-county decks cleared, it’s now down to what many contend is the serious club stuff in Louth club football.

Yes, the leagues – which have been going on since the season’s start and are now over – are important, victory, and sometimes a runner-up spot, bringing promotion. For the whippers-in, a place lower down in the following season beckons.

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The championships, however, are, among other things, the crowd-pullers. They appeal to neutrals, while giving the winners custody of the best-known and most prestigious trophies, and, at the same time, a chance to test their strength at provincial level.

St Mary’s are unbackable to take the senior. Well, maybe not to those who like to ‘buy money’. The intrepid (stupid?) punter doesn’t mind trading at odds-on – and odds-on is what the champions are, quoted at one stage at 1/5.

To those unfamiliar with betting jargon, this means laying out five (Fivers, Tenners, Scores, whatever you can afford yourself) to win just one.

There’s good reason why the Ardee men are top of the bookies’ lists. They’ve had no equal in the knock-out over the past three years, and after their most recent win, went mightily close to adding a Leinster title.

Their Croke Park final with Dublin champions, Cuala, looked for a long time to be running away from them; but they mounted a massive comeback in the last quarter, and in the end were just squeezed out of it.

They may not be shouting it from the Ardee rooftops, but it’s more than one or two who are saying the club’s main objective is the provincial title – winning the Joe Ward for the fourth time in a row is just a means of getting into the race.

Nothing to beat a bit of confidence, but it’s also dangerous to get too far ahead of yourself.

However, what can’t be ignored is that Mary’s will field an even stronger team than last year. No other club has had as many players on county teams this year, taking in the three grades, senior, under-20 and minor. And we all know how successful the first half of the year was for those in red.

In addition to the likes of Donal McKenny, the Jackson brothers, Ciaran Keenan and Daire McConnon, we have Tiarnan Markey, Keelin Martin, Adam Gillespie, Seán Callaghan and Tadhg McDonnell, all who went to the All-Ireland final with the under-20s, with Callaghan and McDonnell named on the grade’s team of the year.

And then there’s Tommy Durnin, arguably the most popular to wear the seniors’ jersey. The former Westerns player has made it in from Inniskeen Grattans for his first season, and whereas it was thought he might reunite with his first club, he has opted for Mary’s, and that has to be a plus.

Durnin may or may not have another new signing, Brian Talty – a name made famous by his father, the former Galway midfielder – as a colleague, but that won’t matter; he shouldn’t find it difficult to make his presence felt.

So, it’s a one-horse race? Try telling that to Naomh Mairtín, or Cardinal O’Donnell Cup finalists, St Mochta’s or St Joseph’s. Or any of the others, for that matter.

There’s no team that will be happy to just make up the numbers – and you can only imagine what it would mean to any of them if they were to knock the favourites off their pedestal along the way, or better still, in the final.

The tape goes up at the end of this month.