Longford overpower Louth to claim O'Byrne Cup title

Longford 3-13                                                                                                                              Louth 0-12

Eight is now the tally, eight games since Louth have got the better of Longford. Spanning as far back as 2017, the midlanders have held the upper hand in all competitions.

Saturday’s O’Byrne Cup final was another fruitless trip to the midlands but it could have been so much better for the men in Red.

Dessie Reynolds dealt out the punishment and ended up with a hat-trick for his troubles but Louth were the writers of their own downfall.

Two turnovers coming out of their own defence led to Reynolds first two, while his third was magic it was still a cumulation of weak defending and a side hemmed into their own half.

Louth began quite well, Ryan Burns and Sam Mulroy quickly had the visitors in full control and it wasn't until a quarter of an hour of action before Reynolds landed Longford’s first point.

“They turned out to be the better team,” Manager Mickey Harte told the Democrat after the game.

“I think that in the first 20, 25 minutes we were the better team, and unfortunately we probably didn’t take care of the scoreboard at that time.

“We were knocking off good points against the breeze, we took a shot that maybe we shouldn’t have taken, and they went up the field and got a point.

“Then next thing, Craig Lennon took on a man, which on a dry sod, he’d have been five metres away from him, but because he went to ground, the ball was turned over.

“So that was a bad four-point swing, in a game where we were in control.”

Louth responded to the goal against the grain with a superb Oisín McGuinness effort from distance and some excellent Mulroy place taking that took the captain to five points in the first half.

However Darren Gallagher remained and remains a thorn in Louth’s side the big Granard midfielder was just as effective the other end landing two scores to make the goal the difference at half time, 1-7 to 0-7 in the hosts favour.

Second half, Louth again began smartly with corner men Jay Hughes and Tom Gray finding the range before another hammer blow.

“You might say that the scoreboard rattled us in the second half, but the defeat happened in the first half, " Harte added.

“Goals are big scores in a game. Giving away one bad one is bad enough, but when you give two away, and I think we did give them away more so than they were brilliantly created.

“It was errors on our part, and that knocked the stuffing out of the boys too.”

Liam Jackson was guilty for Reynolds second, a mislaid hand pass was pounced upon and when Reynolds received the ball in space he calmly slotted away under Martin McEneaney.

From that point forward Louth were never in contention of winning the O’Byrne Cup since 2009.

That sentiment was also felt by Harte: “When a team has the momentum with them, and they had more of their first team players on than we had, so we had an uphill battle.

“When they got that momentum, they got in the ascendancy, we found it hard to claw that back.

“It shouldn’t have been as big a gap as it was, because we had a chance at five points there at the end, to put a more respectable look on the scoreboard – but it would only have been doing that.

“Once it got into the final quarter of the game, we were never going to win it, it was only going to be about putting up a performance.”

Reynolds saved his best till last, catching a dropping cross from Joe Hagan -which was an obvious ploy on the day by Paddy Christie's side-Reynolds danced and finished the game off before he was roared off minutes later.

Louth’s day got worse when captain Mulroy failed to provide some gloss on the scoreline by blazing a penalty wide at the death; it summed up Louth’s day.

On another note, St. Kevin’s midfielder Evan Maher came on to make his debut in a match where Louth had 10 players come in and start their first game of 2023.

That for Harte was the context that needed to be applied as all roads now lead to Ennis next Sunday.

“Every day you go out, you hope you learn something and you hope the players learn something.

“That’s all I’m asking of them, to take on board what they might have learned today and see if they can use it in another game in the future.

“Ultimately, everybody enjoys the preseason competitions and when you’re in it, you’d like to win it, but when you don’t win it, that’s the deal done now, it’s over and it’s behind us.

“Now we have to look ahead to next week and to prepare the best we can because we need to take a result out of Clare next week.”

LONGFORD: Paddy Collum; Barry O’Farrell, Andrew Farrell, Ryan Moffett; Peter Lynn, Gary Rogers, Iarla O’Sullivan; Fergal Sheridan 0-1, Darren Gallagher 0-3 (245’); Dylan Farrell, Joe Hagan, Michael Quinn 0-1; Dessie Reynolds 3-3, Daniel Mimnagh 0-1, David McGivney 0-4 (2f). Subs: Aaron Farrell for D Farrell (56), Robbie Smyth for Quinn (61), James McGivney for Mimnagh (64), Jack Macken for Reynolds (66), Peter Foy for O’Sullivan (68), Brian Masterson for Lynn (68), Ruairi Harkin for Rogers (68), Conor Keenan for Hagan (72), Jayson Matthews for D McGivney (72), Tadhg McNevin for Gallagher (72).

LOUTH: Martin McEneaney; Alan Connor, Bevan Duffy, Paraic McKenny; Oisín McGuinness 0-1, Liam Jackson, Craig Lennon; Tommy Durnin, Conall McCaul 0-1; Shane Matthews, Ciarán Keenan, Ryan Burns 0-1; Jay Hughes 0-2, Sam Mulroy 0-6 (3f, 145’), Tom Gray 0-1. Subs: Niall Sharkey for Lennon (40), Gerard Browne for McKenny (54), Jack Murphy for Matthews (64), Conor Clarke for Connor (65), Evan Maher for McCaul (68). 

Referee: Keith O’Brien (Westmeath).