Heady days in Louth. Throughout this lightning fast league, while the attention has been fixed on events at the top of the table, Mickey Harte has quietly guided his team through a second consecutive promotion season.
His side are odds-on favourites to make the jump to Division Two this weekend even as his native Tyrone face a huge task to avoid dropping into the same division.
It’s as though Harte and Tyrone are like magnets drawn: even before the weekend fixtures are played, there seems something pre-ordained about a reunion.
What is certain is that securing Harte was a bright piece of improvisation by Louth. When he first took over the post, Harte told Colm Corrigan on Louthtv that Peter Fitzpatrick, the chairman and former manager, had called very soon after he had parted ways with Tyrone. Fitzpatrick admits now that he was keeping a close eye on events in Tyrone around that time.
"I came in three years ago and we had two dreams. Our first dream was to get a stadium and the second was to get a good football team. We decided the two would go side-by-side. The year before Mickey came in we played in Division Three, didn't win a game and were knocked out in the first round of the championship.
“Louth was at an all time low. And to be quite honest, one of the first questions Mickey Harte asked was if there was talent in Louth. And the problem we had was that the best players were not making themselves available to play. Success breeds success. We wanted the best players out for Louth and we decided to show people we meant business.
“Mickey and I crossed paths when I was managing in 2010 and 2012 and a few times when I was playing football for Louth. I waited and once I heard, I contacted him. He said he would come back to me and he was as good as his word.”
He has a very, very young panel there. And he asked us were we looking for a quick fix or a long term plan"
It was an eye-catching development. The general assumption was that Harte might take a step back after such a long and productive period in charge of Tyrone. His record was unassailable: three All-Ireland titles in four final appearances, seven Ulster titles. Louth was not an immediately attractive proposition.
After the 2020 season, Harte was inheriting a side that had endured a punishing league, with one win and a series of defeats that included a 5-19 pasting by Cork. And no Louth team has made it to a Leinster semi-final since 2010, the summer when they saw an historic Leinster title stolen from their grasp with a late, controversial goal scored by neighbours Meath.
Truth
That team was managed by Fitzpatrick. From a distance, it was though the extreme disappointment of that day that sent the county team into a tailspin.
The truth was more complex.
"No. There's always been good footballers in Louth," says Colm Nally, the Leinster GAA coach who was Louth senior coach under Colin Kelly, when they were last promoted to Division Two, four years ago.
“The club scene is thriving at the moment. Naomh Martin are top dogs but St Mary’s St Mochta’s and Newtown Blues will push them hard. You will see two or three from each of those squads on the Louth team now. For me it is a simple numbers game.
"We don't have the same numbers as Kildare, Dublin and Meath. Like it or not, Dundalk and Drogheda are soccer towns. Most other counties are not competing with that. It is a bespoke situation. Louth is a great sporting county and so we are always pulling on the hearts and minds of the young. The energy that Mickey and Devlin have brought in the players will respond to and that rubs off."
Nally played with Louth for four years, from 1998 to 2002 when Paddy Clarke was in charge. He spearheaded an initiative in 2016 to draft former Louth footballers into the coaching structure. It paid dividends: Brian Philips and Aaron Hoey are with the minors. Adrian and David Reid of Mattock Rangers and former midfielder Seán McCann are all involved in underage coaching.
Although raised in Dublin, Nally settled in Louth, played with the county and has been immersed in the club and county coaching scene for years. Like many former players, he can point to a number of instances when Louth teams might have progressed further than they did.
Fitzpatrick has had that same frustration. Talk turns to a long-forgotten Division Two title game in 2006 between Louth and Donegal. The replay, in Breffni Park, drew a bumper crowd of 11,000. Louth won. Yet the following year, Donegal were league champions outright while Louth were relegated to Division Three, because the GAA were revamping the house – yet again. Such are cruel breaks.
"I wasn't involved then but I did go and see the game. I felt myself that maybe Louth was not ambitious enough. I played for Louth for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s and we had a very good team. But our problem was we had six provincial semi-finals and there were days we could have beaten Kildare or Offaly or even Dublin.
“But we just hadn’t that experience. And there was a time when Mick O’Dwyer was keen on coming to Louth. And I think if we had had the balls to go and get him we might have had a few Leinster titles.”
That missed opportunity may have been at the back of Fitzpatrick’s mind when he approached Harte. The reversal of form has been dramatic and Fitzpatrick says Harte’s influence was immediately felt.
“One of the most important things he brought was organisation. He took Gavin Devlin, one of the best coaches in the country with him. He brought in a belief: he believed that Louth could go places. He has a very, very young panel there. And he asked us were we looking for a quick fix or a long term plan.
"Our feeling was that when we go up we want to stay up. And he didn't think the squad was physically strong enough last year. They needed a lot of strength and conditioning. Last year in Division Four, Sligo and Antrim put a big effort in and any one of us could have gone up. So we were happy – particularly when you see Cavan and Tipperary coming down."
Fitzpatrick remembers the reaction of Sam Mulroy the evening he told the squad that Harte was joining the county as manager. "He just said: 'wow'."
Mulroy is the Louth captain and has been sensational throughout the league, hitting 3-44 to date. That included a last-gasp free against Longford in the second round, following a five point defeat to Laois in the opening game.
Winning streak
But since then Louth have been rock solid in a four game winning streak. There was a buzz around the ground in Ardee last week for the Antrim game, a sense of something happening. Colm Nally's son Daire is on the squad and came in against Antrim after just 14 minutes.
“I see the work they are putting in and the enjoyment they get from it. The young players are as good as anyone around. I have known Sam since he was 10 years old. He is a great talent and has a great mentor in JP Rooney. He is a role model. He is coachable and all those boys are hanging on every word from Mickey and Gavin.
“They bring that back to the clubs. They play really attractive, clever football and they are a really tight unit. When you get that at county level, you know you have a chance.”
It is significant that this league drive has been achieved despite long term injuries of established players like Dermot Campbell, Eoghan 0' Callaghan, Ciarán Byrne and Casey Byrne. Harte used the O'Byrne Cup to give game time to 17 Under-20 players. They didn't win a game but he knew what he had to work with.
"A few years ago that would have meant a hammering. But Mickey has a system in place now that they all know the job they have to do. If we beat Wicklow we are in Division Two. And some people are worried we are not ready. But I feel it is never too early. When the opportunity is there you take it."
Colm Nally will be busy with Meath this weekend but is hopeful that when the weekend round-up is announced, his adopted county will be among the winners.
“Its peaks and valleys. That is the thing with Louth. They keep coming back. Louth teams have great resilience.”
