Devlin hails ‘special group’ as Louth end Dublin hoodoo
Gavin Devlin shares his thoughts after the Wee County defeated Dublin at Croke Park
Louth senior football manager, Gavin Devlin, paid tribute to his players after they produced an inspired second-half comeback to record their first All-Ireland Senior Football Championship victory over Dublin since 1973.
Devlin praised the mentality his Louth squad showed when the game threatened to drift away from them.
Speaking after the game, he said: “We'd done a lot of work in chatting about mentally, the mental side of it.
“We know the way Dublin play and they can blitz you; the scoreboard can change really quickly.
“Westmeath found themselves in it a few times in the Leinster final, where they were five points down, but they were able to just dig in.
“When that would come our way, could we do the same? Could we learn off that? Thankfully, today we did, and we didn't go anywhere.
“We stayed present and true and took it down the stretch. When you take it down the stretch, then you can get the rub of the green.
“I felt we did get the rub of the green. We worked so hard for it. Boys in that second half putting their bodies on the line, block after block, fighting for scraps and chasing and harrying.
“It wasn't a perfect performance behind the stretch. We made mistakes and things that we know we could do even a lot better.
“But in terms of desire and will to win fighting for that Louth jersey, you couldn't ask any more of them. They're just a special group of lads.”
Kickouts
A major factor in the turnaround was Louth’s improvement around kick-outs after struggling badly in that area during the first half.
“We worked so hard on our kick-outs. The players and our management team, like some of our coaches, like Peter Dooley, Ronan O’Neill, (Ciarán) Sloan ‘Sloaner’, the boys, they're brilliant.
“It's just amazing how the game can swing in a pendulum with that belief when you can get rhythm in your game.
“All of a sudden, everything that you felt that we couldn't do and wasn't working, all of a sudden, it does work.
“That's what the new game in the FRC has brought. It's that up and down game.
“I think that's the key to the new game now, is finding a way and staying through and not getting too high or not getting too low and just staying present because it can't flip. Today, we were able to get that job done.”
He added: “Kick-outs is massive. I think that's the thing that really, really killed us in Portlaoise.
“We couldn't get a hand on their kick-out, and we were losing some of our own in bad places. They were really punishing us.
“Then that grew into our attacking game, where we started making bad choices, and you could see that we were getting a wee bit impatient on the ball, and then all of a sudden the scoreboard gets away.
“But today, the kick-outs, particularly in the second half, I thought my Niall (McDonnell) was immense.
“Some of us were running into spaces, and we were getting pressure, real hard pressure, but we were still brave enough.
“We knew the importance of the ball in hand. Yeah, it was a kick-out that was mammoth.”
Focus
The victory finally ended a championship drought against the Dubs stretching back more than five decades, though Devlin was already looking ahead.
“They've broken a few monkeys, these boys, over the course of the years. There's just hope that they're not finished yet.
“There's other things that we need to be looking about and doing and accomplishing.
“That's the part of this game that we love, because what you do today or what you did yesterday isn't good enough tomorrow. The wheel keeps moving and evolving.
“I think that's a challenge for all of us. Can we keep moving and evolving with it? It's a challenge.”