Gaelic Games

Louth up and running in Ger Brennan era after victory over Cork

First-half goals from Ciaran Downey and Ciaran Keenan hauled the hosts back after a slow start

Louth manager Ger Brennan and Niall Moyna after the game. Photograph: Ciaran Culligan/Inpho

Paul Keane
Sun Feb 4 2024 - 18:00

Louth 2-9 Cork 0-13

Louth are up and running in the Ger Brennan era though their first National League win under the Dubliner didn’t necessarily come as anticipated.

As Brennan said afterwards neither he nor his players will be ‘licking’ themselves after the patchy performance.

Still, first-half goals from Ciaran Downey and Ciaran Keenan hauled the hosts back after a slow start and they ultimately sealed victory with three late points from Craig Lennon, Ryan Burns and captain Sam Mulroy.

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It is back-to-back wins over Cork in Ardee for Louth though last year’s three-point success was achieved under Mickey Harte.

Former Dublin centre back Brennan took the reins after Harte’s defection to Derry and this was their first Division 2 win following a narrow opening round loss in Armagh.

“I wouldn’t be licking myself, or the lads wouldn’t be too much,” said Brennan. “Because against a more clinical team ... like, Cork will rue the number of chances they missed. I thought we won playing poorly, which was great too. But there’s an awful lot to work on so I wouldn’t be overly pleased. Ultimately it is about getting the two points.”

It’ll be a short hop across to Navan for Louth’s Round 3 fixture against Meath next Sunday week. Cork, meanwhile, will finally get a home game a day earlier, against Cavan, following back to back road trips to Donegal and Louth.

Manager John Cleary said there were plenty of positives to take from the two-point loss despite relegation and the Tailteann Cup now coming into focus for them.

“I thought the performance was quite good, we controlled the game for long periods,” said Cleary. “It was just on the day that they got the goals and we didn’t.”

The other positive from Cork’s perspective is that while they’ve lost back to back league games to Louth, they’ve beaten them in back to back Championship campaigns in 2022 and 2023.

Perhaps this is just an early season wobble as they showed glimpses of quality and set the terms for extended periods.

At one stage in the third quarter, for example, they held on to the ball for three or four minutes before winning a free that Brian Hurley, who’d earlier been to the sin bin, scuffed and dropped short. That summed things up for the Rebels who’d initially built up a 0-7 to 0-4 lead only to hand it all back in the space of a couple of minutes.

Louth goals in the 22nd and 24th minutes from Downey and Keenan, both coming from darting moves through the Cork defence, helped Brennan’s side to lead 2-4 to 0-9 at half-time.

Cork, despite playing into the wind, were better in the third quarter and the sides were level three times but Louth’s strong finish sealed a significant win.

Louth: N McDonnell; D Campbell, P Lynch, D McKenny; C Murphy, A Williams, C Lennon (0-2); C Early, T Durnin; P Mathews (0-1), C Keenan (1-0), C Grimes; C Downey (1-0), S Mulroy (0-5, five frees), R Burns (0-1). Subs: C McCaul 50, L Grey for Murphy 58, C McKeever for Campbell 58, D McKeown for Burns 61, W Campbell for Keenan 65.

Cork: P Doyle (0-1, one 45); M Shanley, D O’Mahony, T Walsh (0-1); L Fahy, S Meehan, M Taylor; I Maguire (0-1), C O’Callaghan (0-1); E McSweeney (0-2), R Deane, B O’Driscoll; C Og Jones (0-2), B Hurley (0-4, three frees), M Cronin (0-1, one free). Subs: D Cashman for Fahy h/t, S Sherlock for Hurley 56, R Maguire for Meehan 56, D Buckley for Deane 58, B Murphy for Jones 69.

Ref: M McNally (Monaghan).

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