Inside Track: It’s Burns’ day as Hunterstown win title

Ryan Burns’ cake has a thick layer of icing on it – all that’s now needed for a cherry to be added is a nod from the All-Star selectors.

It’s already been a memorable 2025 for the Hunterstown Rover. First up was finding a place on the Louth team for the Leinster final, and then scoring a crucial goal in the defeat of the team not far across the road from where he lives.

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His exploits in the red jersey were enough to earn him an All-Star nomination, Sam Mulroy and Craig Lennon, the others to bring up Louth’s representation to three.

After that came his club’s challenge for intermediate championship honours. This is one he wanted badly to sit among his other honours. He hadn’t good memories of last year’s final. It went to two games with Dundalk Gaels and ended in defeat.

There wouldn’t have been need for the second one had he converted a close-in free in the last seconds of the drawn games. That lapse, however, probably sharpened his and his colleagues’ edge to make the title theirs this time around.

Needing Burns’ sharpness around the goals to get them to the final, Rovers went the whole way on Sunday, beating Stabannon Parnells in a final that lacked nothing in drama and controversy, and ended with just one point separating the sides.

And of course, Burns played a big part, getting a goal near the end that gave Rovers the breathing space to withstand Stabannon’s late pitch for victory.

Burns has always been a leading light for his club, but no-one has had to work harder to establish himself on the county team. He found it hard at times to make the first fifteen, and on many of the occasions that he did, he was substituted.

He’ll have a crucial role to play in Louth’s bid to retain their place in the league’s Division Two, and after that defence of the provincial title.