Louth Carlow Recap

We came. We saw. We conquered.

Here’s my recap.

This was our best performance of the season absolutely no doubt about it and Unless a few of our lads get the flu…the next time we play Carlow in the summer we’ll play the same fifteen again.

Pluseses

We were solid in defence, sure Craig Lynch made a safe early on and dodgy goal at the end aside as the game petered out, we were never really threatened.

Paddy Reilly is really emerging as a quality full back and a pillar to our system as well. A real leader in there.
We competed well around the middle much better than last week. Another plus was our midfield partnership.
Stewart and Peach matched up well to their opponents Stewart on Gannon and Peach on Murphy.
Those 4 will all butt heads again in May too.

Inside, we finally saw the Mellifont duo of Grimes and Burnsey play together.

They’re movement could be better but you’ll forgive them in their first outing in 2016 together. As a whole, they were very destructive and gave us the focus in attack we lacked all year.

Perfect for Wexford (Promotion final) in Drogheda in two weeks time.

Role Models

Our team had a bite about it today from the get-go.

We had better balance too.

Everyone of the Louth players knew their roles.
Not only were they comfortable in them but they thrived also.

Previously mentioned Reilly and Grimes, Maguire sweeping, Decky off the middle, deeper Jim McEneaney and Tommy Durnin as a substitute.

Come what May

We were always going into this game with a big Carrick-On-Shannon reaction.

It is just a shame it was Carlow that was on the receiving end of the Backlash.

They are our Championship opponents and they got a massive dose of motivation for the next couple of months to keep them nice and hungry.

I have a couple of fears coming away from this game; sure the margin and manner of victory but we’ve basically showed our hand to Carlow.
They now know our team, our dangermen and the way we set up…

We used familiar substitutes for the sake of substitutes and didn’t switch players in different positions to see how they would fare come the summer.
What have we learned from Carlow?
Nothing really…
That we are better than them? We knew that anyway.
Bar the two points the Championnship dress rehearsal was a bit of a missed opportunity really…lets hope we don’t live to regret it come what May.