Louth get Leinster SFC underway against the O'Moore County

Louth senior footballers get their Leinster Senior Football Championship campaign underway this afternoon with a quarter-final clash against Laois in Newbridge. Throw-in at Cedral St. Conleth’s Park is at 3.00pm.

The Wee County head into the knockout stages on the back of a crucial win over Meath in Inniskeen, a result that not only kept them in Division 2 but also gave the squad a welcome lift in the build-up to championship football.

READ MORE: Louth "will be looking to rectify" errors next week says Hilliard

When speaking ahead of the last eight tie, manager Ger Brennan said: “Winning certainly helps in terms of team morale and everything else, it certainly helps despite the work going on in the background.

“When you're not getting the results, it can be an extra load on the players and management to kind of pick things up.

“You have to give due respect to the opposition to ensure that they are studied and looked at accordingly and see if we can identify some of their key guys as I've mentioned there.

“You look at the Laois campaign as a whole and credit to (Justin) McNulty and his management team and the work that he had to put in this year.

“He had a lot of change compared to his first year in charge where he got them up to Division 3 and they have a lot of new guys in there as well this league campaign.

“So to stay in Division 3 was also a big achievement there. There's an awful lot of positives going for them.

“In terms of ourselves, you're looking to get better week to week, game to game and we know while some areas of our gameplay was working well against Meath, it's not going to be as easy going into the Laois game.

“Then you throw in the special ingredients of Championship football, Laois will have had a game played which will be an advantage to them.

“Where there could be an extra few nerves in the Louth camp because it is the first Championship outing.”

Team news-wise, it’s a mixed bag. Sam Mulroy will miss out, which is a blow, but the camp has had positive updates on a number of other players.

“Sam was working hard and we were in his club the weekend which was lovely thanks to Naomh Mairtin and some of the other clubs who have facilitated the senior team over the last number of weeks while repair work was going on in Darver.

“So it was great to see Sam and Ciarán Keenan running which was great. Craig Lennon trained the weekend, and 'Casey' Byrne trained the weekend.

“Conor Grimes trained at the weekend, Dan Corcoran and Anthony Williams will more than likely be training this week as well.”

The Wee County have named one change from the side that defeated Meath in the Allianz National Football League clash three weeks ago - with full forward Conor Grimes coming in for Stabannon Parnell clubman, Seán Reynolds.

The Louth team to face Loais has been named as: 1. Niall McDonnell; 2. Emmet Carolan, 3. Dermot Campbell, 4. Donal McKenny; 5. Daire Nally, 6. Peter Lynch, 7. Conall McKeever; 8. Tommy Durnin (c), 9. Fearghal Malone; 10. Paul Matthews, 11. Ciarán Downey, 12. Andy McDonnell; 13. Conor Grimes, 14. Kieran McArdle, 15. Ryan Burns.

Substitutes: 16. Tiernan Markey, 17. Liam Jackson, 18. Leonard Gray, 19. Craig Lennon, 20. Ciarán Byrne, 21. Dara McDonnell, 22. Daire McConnon, 23. Conor Brannigan, 24. Seán Reynolds, 25. Dylan McKeown, 26. Liam Flynn.