Mickey Harte has vowed that Louth will throw everything at the All-Ireland series after the “wheels came off the wagon” in the Leinster final.
After challenging for promotion to Division One this year and reaching a first provincial final in 13 years, there was optimism that Louth could at least put it up to Dublin but it turned out to be a long afternoon for them as Dessie Farrell’s side ran out 21-point winners to cruise to a 13th successive Leinster title.
Despite the scale of the defeat, the team was greeted by hundreds of supporters when they returned to O'Raghallaighs GFC in Drogheda later that evening, where Harte addressed the crowd and admitted his surprise at the turnout while lamenting the fact that the Delaney Cup hadn’t made the trip up the M1 with them.
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“This was arranged that we would come home here and we really, really intended to have the cup with us,” said the Louth boss. “We believed that we could do that but it didn’t happen for us today.
“The wheels came off the wagon to a certain extent but we also met a very, very talented Dublin team who pulled out all the stops, pulled out all the players they could dig out from the past who have All-Ireland medals hanging out of them and our players had to face that today and I believe they acquitted themselves well at various stages of the game and other times we just were overrun a bit. That’s life.
“But I really am so, so surprised and amazed that the number of people that are here to see us coming home because the way that the result went at the end, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been nobody here. That’s the truth,” he stated before the crowd reaffirmed its appreciation for how far the former Tyrone boss has brought the team with warm applause.
Harte then turned his attention to the upcoming All-Ireland series which gets underway for Louth the weekend after next with a designated home tie against Cork, though they have nominated Navan’s Pairc Tailteann to host the game given the lack of a suitable ground in their own county.
“The truth of the matter is we wanted to give you more to be happy about today than you got but the good thing about it is, there’s a game in a fortnight again and we’ll roll up our sleeves and we’ve said we’ll prepare for that game in two weeks in the Championship and we’ll do our level best to be here again and maybe we’ll come back another day with a better result.”
It’s an unforgiving group that Louth find themselves in with All-Ireland contenders Mayo and Kerry also in the mix.
On paper, the Cork game appears to be the most winnable and they can take solace from having beaten them in the League but losing Leinster finalists have tended to struggle upon entering the All-Ireland series over the years.
On the 20 occasions that there has been a ‘back door’ for losing provincial finalists since 2001 (the Championship reverted to straight knockout in 2020 and ‘21 owing to the pandemic), only five times have the Leinster runners-up won their next outing.
Indeed, it’s only happened once since 2009 - when Meath beat Clare in a round four qualifier in 2019 to earn a place in the ‘Super 8s’.
Outside of that, the only occasions on which a team has bounced back with a victory after losing a Leinster final was when Dublin beat Sligo in 2001, Laois beat Derry in 2005, Wexford beat Down in 2008 and Kildare beat Wicklow in 2009.
In 2010, Louth lost a round four qualifier to Dublin by seven points following their hugely controversial Leinster final defeat to Meath after a push to have to have the provincial decider replayed ultimately came to nothing.
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