Inside Track: A sad way for Louth to bring down the curtain

Louth senior footballers deserved a better wind-up to their season that the one they had on Sunday. Here was a team that had ended the county’s dismal championship run, and earlier in the year did well enough to remain in Division Two of the league.

The Sam Mulroy-captained team were attempting to go a stage further in the All-Ireland series, taking on Donegal at their favourite Ballybofey grounds.

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It proved itself a challenge beyond them, the final score showing 16 points in favour of the home side, 2-22 to 0-12

The result wasn’t a surprise – the paucity of the team’s second half performance was. Donegal, the Ulster champions, are among the leading fancies for All-Ireland glory; their record at Ballybofey has only a few blemishes, and in Jim McGuinness they have a manager, who, just let’s say, knows the time of day.

Since winning the Leinster title, Louth have only been ordinary, losing to Monaghan and Down and struggling to get past lowly Clare.

It would, therefore, have needed a huge step up in form to win this one. Still, at half-time supporters dared to dream. Their side were just two points in arrears, having cut Donegal’s one-time advantage in half.

But what came afterwards was a disaster. With most of the big guns remaining silent, mistakes coming thick and fast, and having a player black-carded, the Reds got steamrolled by a Donegal side, who, as their lead grew, became much more adventurous around goals than they’d been in the opening half.

The pressure was off them. Few risks had been taken before the break, but now Gallen and company up front were shooting from distance, and getting results. Louth could do nothing about it.

Brennan introduced a number of players late on, but as under-20s were among them, he was probably looking more to the future than trying to engineer a way back.

The quartet of Sam Mulroy, Tommy Durnin, Craig Lennon and Ciarán Downey have been central to all of what Louth have achieved this season – and the season before that, as well.

This time, however, none of them brought their A-game with them on the long journey – made longer by a travelling mishap – to the north-west.

That being the case, it was quite an achievement for Louth to be right on Donegal’s shoulder at the break. For that, Ryan Burns can take most of the credit.

With the score standing at 0-5 to 0-1 in the home side’s favour, the Hunterstown Rovers man made the very best of his chances, picking off some lovely scores to level the match.

He added another just before the break to breathe some life back into the Louth challenge after Donegal claimed their first goal, which was simplicity in itself.

Dara McDonnell had just brought the sides level for the second time with a well taken point, when, from a lengthy kick-out, Conor McDonnell won possession behind midfield.

There was no variation in O’Donnell’s run at the Louth goals, a straight line and then a pile-driver that gave Niall McDonnell no chance.

A poor kick-out led to Donegal’s second goal eight minutes into the second half, and to make matters worse, seconds later Peter Lynch was sent to the sin-bin for ten minutes. By then, however, Donegal had taken charge of the game.

They began to pick off scores at will, Louth forced to go more and more on the defensive. And any time there was an attack at the other end, the fluency of movement and ability to take a score seen in the second half of the Down match just wasn’t there.

Whereas Sunday’s defeat will in time be pushed to the background, all else that happened this season will live long in the memory. There was a three-pronged attack for championship success.

Two titles were won, by the seniors and under-20s, while the minors were desperately unlucky not to bring up the treble and after that reach the All-Ireland semi-finals.

The seniors’ defeat of Meath in front of a 66,000 Croke Park crowd will find a special place in the Louth record books. It helped erase some unpleasant memories, and, perhaps, act as an incentive to the underage sides.

It’s just unfortunate there wasn’t something better to bring the curtain down. The team’s season-long effort was worthy of better.