Ardee manager says “We have no fear of anyone”

After Ardee St. Mary's impressive win over Rathvilly in the Leinster Club Senior Football Championship on Sunday, manager Cathal Murray shared his thoughts on the team’s performance at DEFY Páirc Mhuire.

Murray praised his players for their relentless drive, highlighting how their third-quarter push once again helped turn the game in their favour.

He said: “We have spoken before about being a third-quarter team. You don’t deliberately go out to put a big push at a certain point of a game, you take the opportunities that are given.

He singled out Donal McKenny for his effort, noting McKenny's knack for finding the right spaces and his determination to press the opposition. 

“He does this relentlessly for Louth. He scored a couple of goals for Louth this year, he pops up in them spaces and gets the scores.

“It wasn’t a big surprise for me to see him score like that. It was his willingness to run, to put pressure on Rathvilly, and to exploit the gaps that had been left. 

“Probably early in the game teams aren’t maybe completely switched on, he maybe got them sleeping in the early stage.”

Despite the team’s tendency to surge after half-time, Murray was quick to clarify that they aren’t deliberately waiting until the third quarter to make their move.

“No, it hasn’t been spoken about,” he explained. “It’s not a big thing. Maybe when you are looking at performances you see when the key moments in the game are, and they probably have been late after half-time more often than not.

“It’s not an obvious ploy by us to come strong then because if you are waiting until the third quarter you could find yourself being out of a game completely.

“All of a sudden, a team locks down on you and you are playing against a mass defence, which we did play against at a time during the game there. We are an attacking team, and we will attack whether it’s the first minute or the last minute.”

Looking ahead to the semi-final, Ardee will face either St. Loman’s of Westmeath or Castletown of Wexford. However, Murray isn’t too concerned about who the opponent might be.

“We haven’t looked. I’ll get down on Tuesday night and have a look and see who we have then but whoever it is, it is. I don’t mind.”

He also had high praise for McKenny’s overall contribution. Murray said: “He marked Conor Doyle today and people think that Donal as a scoring threat, he was immense, but I thought he did a great job on Conor Doyle as well.

“Conor is an immense footballer and another county player, but at the same time he didn’t get much change out of Donal either.”

For Murray, McKenny’s marking job on Doyle was as satisfying as his scoring. “That for me as a coach is as pleasing a performance to see him do a marking job on a forward as opposed to scoring 1-2 and he finished top scorer.”

The game wasn’t without tense moments, though, and Murray acknowledged the contribution of goalkeeper Tiernan Markey, who pulled off a crucial save toward the end of the second half.

He said: “There were moments when we sort of switched off. Towards the end of the first half, I felt the tempo dropped and we got a wee bit loose, stopped working, and stopped pressing them.

“There were a number of turnovers, we were blown for over carrying, there was just a phase, and again in that time when they did get in on goal, Tiernan has a lot of big moments in games and saves like that.

“If they get a goal at that stage then all of a sudden it’s game on with six or seven minutes to go, so Tiernan was key in that.” 

Reflecting on the progress of the team and the growing ambitions within Ardee, Murray noted the team’s increasing confidence.

“These lads have won underage; we have won the last three championships in Louth. They are under no illusions about how big a task it is going to be, but they have confidence.

“A lot of these guys are born winners. They’ve had a lot of underage success, and I know that doesn’t always transfer to senior success. 

“But it gives them confidence to know we can mix it with the top teams in Leinster. We have no fear of anyone.”

Murray sees this self-belief as a key factor in Ardee’s recent success. “We will go and perform and play our football and prepare for the opposition obviously but when you are playing against a team like us, we are giving teams a lot of headaches.

“The players that we have and the style of football that we play. They are all footballers.” With an attacking style of play and freedom for players to push forward, Ardee is clearly looking to keep challenging the top teams.

“There is Donal playing as a six and getting 1-2, and Tadhg (McDonnell) playing corner-back and getting a couple of points,” Murray said.

“There are no restrictions on anybody. They will go and attack and they will play and there is a freedom there for them to by in large do what they want, not always, but a lot of the time.”