Devlin says "One result won't define" Louth

Louth face familiar foe Meath in the Allianz National Football League, Division Two encounter on Saturday evening at Croke Park.

Manager Gavin Devlin does not shy away from the magnitude of the game, where two important points and north-east bragging rights to play for.

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He said: “It seems like every game's a big game in Division Two. We've been saying that from the start of the year. Today's a big day, it's a big game whenever you're playing your local rivals.

“It brings its own spices, and particularly after the Leinster final last year, I'm sure Meath will be smarting from that.

“Meath from Robbie (Brennan) came in, he brought great experience and he brought his genius with him from Kilmacud and grew steady from he has come in.

“Even from 2025, if you're beating Dublin and Kerry in the one year in the Championship, you'd think there's a good chance of bringing Sam down the road.

“He's making steady progress, and then to bring it into this year's National League, they’ve two wins out of two.

“They're on a progressive wave at the moment, and they have serious aspirations of coming out of the Division, Meath. So, we're under no illusions of what we're going to meet on Saturday.”

Last weekend’s defeat at home to Cork has been processed but not forgotten.

“Against Offaly, we didn't get too high, and then the Cork game, we didn't get too low either. That's the beauty of Division Two.

“We don't have the luxury of looking at the result or the scoreboard after a game and drawing our conclusions from that. If we had taken our chances and been more efficient, the game could have been so different.

“We went in at half-time, eight points down, and without fear of contradiction, we could have easily gone three or four up at half-time.

“Then we got the sucker punch again, and then we started making rash choices again on the ball, and then the game went away from us.

“Cork are no bad team, and they kept the possession and kept the ball and controlled the ball, and it asked different questions of us. It wasn't a perfect performance behind the stretch, but it wasn't all bad either.”

The National League schedule is relentless and offers little recovery time.

“After Meath is over, we've got to get ready for Tyrone a few days after that and then Cavan six days after that.

“It's just running with the punches at this stage. I love it. I think the National League is everything. If you bring your best game, you can win it, but if you're anywhere off that, you're probably going to lose the game.

“I believe our boys have been suffering from before Christmas, and I expect that to go on. One result won't define us, that's one thing for sure, people may write what they want and say what they want, but that won't affect us.”