Louth's season "was pretty successful" says hurling boss McArdle
Louth joint senior hurling manager Paddy McArdle shared his thoughts after the final game of the season
Louth joint senior hurling manager Paddy McArdle admitted Mayo’s strong start proved the difference as the Wee County’s Nicky Rackard Cup campaign ended with defeat at St Brigid’s Park, Dowdallshill on Saturday afternoon.
Despite the loss, McArdle took encouragement from his side’s response after conceding early goals and from the progress made over the course of the season.
The visitors struck two goals at key stages in the opening half, and Louth were left chasing the game from an early stage.
McArdle said, “Reasonably good performance, first half killed us. Got the goals at the start; they'd done what we wanted to do. We wanted to get off to a good start, and they got the good start on us.
“They got the goal, but in fairness, we got three or four points in quick succession after they got the goal and brought us back in it.
“But they overran us in between centre forward, middle of the field and centre back. They overran us a wee bit, and they got a score up that we just couldn't catch them.”
Louth stayed in touch during the first half with Darren Geoghegan proving influential, while McArdle pointed to tactical changes which helped curb Mayo’s attacking threat.
“Well, we took James Costello out; they're number 11 done us awful damage. Yeah, we took James Costello out to mark him, and once he picked him up, it sort of nullified the threat a wee bit of them going forward.
“It just left in that we had two inside, the ball had to be perfect going in to them, at times it wasn't, so it was one man maybe fighting against three looking for a ball.
“We just had to be a wee bit more clinical when we were putting it in and when we were shooting from distance.”
Mentality
McArdle rejected suggestions that the management's late appointment was a major factor behind the defeats this season, insisting improvements had come through a change in mentality and approach during the campaign.
“Listen, it doesn't, it doesn't. You're working out of a very small pool of players here.
“We are trying to get lads up to speed as the year goes on, and yes, we were on the back foot a wee bit at the start.
“But listen, you can blame whatever you want if you're constantly training two, three, or four nights a week. That comes quickly enough.
“Maybe sometimes it's down to the style of play that we're looking to play. We changed halfway through the year; you've probably noticed yourselves. We changed halfway through the year.
“We wanted to start running the ball, and we got good at it in the last few games, especially.
“But the one thing that really changed for us over the last couple of weeks was our mental toughness, or whatever you want to call it.
“We didn't change a wee bit, we just knuckled down and said, look, we're going to have to prepare differently for games here.
“We're going to have to have lads in the right frame of mind. Instead of coming thinking that we're on top of the world, and we're not.
“You're going to have to be prepared to go into a bit of a fight in every game because what you lack elsewhere, you're going to have to get it out with your running and your tackling and your hassling and harrying all over the field.
“Especially the Sligo game, which really let us down. We kind of lay down from the first 5-10 minutes, and that's when we hit the rest of the day.
“As you can see, the next game from that was the Tyrone match. We got a massive response from them. Same against Armagh last week, we got a good response.
“Even the day, it didn't go well first at the start. But you could see the boys knuckled down, and we probably finished stronger than them in the second half.”
2026 season
While disappointed not to reach the latter stages of the competition, McArdle felt Louth achieved their key objectives for the year by retaining both Division Three and Nicky Rackard Cup status.
“Exactly, we've done that. But when you're starting off at the start of the year, you want to win the Nicky Rackard. That has to be your benchmark.
“Can we get that final? Can we win it? We realised pretty quickly that we were maybe a wee step behind.
“If there were a couple of results, the result would have gone our way today against Mayo.
“You're looking for Fermanagh to have the best game they’ve played in a long time to overturn Sligo, we could have been standing down looking at a Nicky Rackard semi-final here.
“As I said to you, the Sligo game was the big one. Sligo was the one that let us down. Had we got the points against Sligo, we were coming here today to go to a semi-final.
“For me, objective one was to stay in the league. We stayed in it. I honestly thought we could have challenged in the league, but it turned out we couldn't.
“But we got enough points to keep us there. The next objective then was the championship. Can we hurl at this level? We showed that we can.
“We've shown that we're good enough. In regard to the year, it was pretty successful. We've had two wins in the Nicky Rackard that we haven't had in a long, long time.
“Arguably, we lost four or five excellent hurlers from last year. As I said to you, the pools are very, very small. You're working out of the same players.
“For us to fill those gaps with lads that had very little county experience has been a massive plus for us too.
“There's a couple of lads there with season-long injuries, and you can't get them back on the field.
“The boys that have come in, the likes of Fionn Cumiskey, new into the panel, had an excellent game last week.
“You have other lads that just haven't really crossed that line of being a club player to a county player. We've introduced them slowly but surely this year.
“For us, it's been a massive success. It's a success to the point that we're still here, we're still in the Nicky Rackard, and we're still in Division Three.”
Buy-in
Looking ahead, McArdle believes greater support across the county is needed if Louth are to push on further.
“Full buy-in from the clubs. Simple as that. Full buy-in from the clubs and full buy-in from the county board.
“I'm not saying that they're not fully bought into it, but we need the full backing of clubs and the county board to make this go a wee step further.
“As you can see, there's not a massive gap. It's four or five or six points in every game, but we need full buy-in from the clubs.
“That's the long and short of it. We need the best players on the field. We need the best 30-35 lads constantly on the pitch. We don't have that everywhere.
“I was still working on it up until today. I told the lads at the start of the year that the squad has never closed. I have made phone calls after phone calls to say, will you come in?
“Maybe not even thinking about this year, thinking about next year. Let them see what the setup is like. The setup's good in my opinion. Let them see what it's like.
“Maybe they'll have a wee bit of interest in it then. They'll say, right, I'll give it a crack next year and see where it takes us.”
Injuries
McArdle also provided an update on Ciarán McKelvey, who picked up an injury during the Mayo clash.
“Just pulled his quad, he was chasing after a ball there. Ciarán, in fairness to him, has been patched up all year.
“We have patched him up to play from game to game. He has been holding himself and holding himself.
“You haven't seen Ciarán McKelvey yet. You've probably seen him the first day against Armagh. Haven't seen him since. Hopefully he's alright.
“You know what? It might actually do him no harm to get a bit of a rest there.”
On Darren Geoghegan and Seán Hodgins, he added:
“Pulled up with a hamstring. I don't think it's anything to worry about. Sean Hodgin's pulled up with a hamstring, too. You know, it's coming towards the end of the year.
“These boys now would be glad to get a couple of weeks off, maybe, and just regroup and go back into the clubs fresh then.
“What they're going to do is they're going to drive on the clubs as well.”