Louth 0-13 Cavan 1-6:LOUTH SURVIVED an early onslaught to get their promotion bid back on track at the Gaelic Grounds yesterday.

With the visitors dominating possession and territory, goalkeeper Neil Gallagher came to the hosts’ rescue on three separate occasions as David Giveny and Michael Brennan squandered goal-scoring opportunities.

All that came after Cian Mackey found the Louth net in the fourth minute to open the scoring and when Giveny fisted over for a point soon afterwards, the home fans were fearing the worst.

However, Cavan didn’t score again until the 35th minute of the half and in the meantime, Louth slowly found their feet.

Two Brian White points from play helped to steady the Louth ship and three frees from Adrian Reid, White and Aaron Hoey saw them hit the front for the first time, 0-7 to 1-4.

Cian Mackey and Hoey exchanged two more frees before the break to preserve Louth’s three-point cushion.

Scores from play seemed desperately hard to come by throughout the contest and three more frees from Hoey and White and a 45 from the latter extended Louth’s lead to six points.

Mackey scored the only point from play in the entire second half in the 18th minute and although Cavan pressed in the final 10 minutes, Louth held on.

LOUTH: N Gallagher; P Rath, D Finnegan, J OBrien; D Crilly, M Fanning, S Fitzpatrick; S ONeill, R Carroll (0-1); B White (0-6,three frees, one forthy-five), M Brennan, A Reid (0-1 free); D Clarke (0-1), A Hoey (0-4 frees), JP Rooney. Subs: A McDonnell for Carroll (13 mins), D Maguire for Clarke (35 mins), D Byrne for Rath (54 mins).

CAVAN: F Reily; E McPhillips, T Corr, M Cahill; A Clarke, E McGuigan, R Flanagan; C Galligan, D Sheridan, D Givney (0-1), G Smith (0-2, frees), M McKeever; C Mackey (1-3, two frees), M Brennan, R Galligan. Subs: M Lyng for Brennan (44 mins), E Reilly for R Galligan (48 mins), L Mulvey for C Galligan (58 mins), M Hannon for McKeever (63 mins).

Referee : G Walsh (Antrim).