Talking Points

A few days after the disappointment…

…and it’s still quite raw.

But some things need to be said.

Football is not about excuses it is about respect.

So I’m not delving into the black-hole that is our galls at Underage and our struggling club football.
I concede that more needs to be done and I’ve gave my opinions and will so again another day but now I’m going to dispel the excuses given for relegation.

Dispelling the Underage Excuse

That group and panel that has been relegated is still better than that and I respect the players too much to patronise them with that underage excuse.
You take football on the day and merit.
You don’t go into a game thinking…ah our underage hasn’t been great we might struggle….you take on the task at hand and go with what you’ve got on the day.

Look at Fermanagh, their underage record is abysmal, inferior to ours by a country mile yet they topped the table!
To go even further, Tipperary has the best recent underage record in Division 3 winning an All-Ireland minor title! yet they failed to get promoted.

Dispelling the Lost players Excuse
Sunday was the 10th competitive game of the season, by now, we should have moved on from the fellas that aren’t there anymore. PK in particular.
Let the chap enjoy his retirement without being dragged into every conversation about our midfield woes at every single opportunity.

We’ve had the same midfield partnership for the whole league so why didn’t we change it?
The kickouts are still the same….why didn’t we mix it up?
Personnel wise we tried Craig Lynch for one half against Fermanagh. At least wexford tried an outfielder in goals.
Tactically Did we try one short kickout the whole game or campaign even!?

Other teams are missing players but our Midfield seems to get a bashing all the time. PK isn’t there anymore yet we’ve failed to even try deal with it instead we’ve sulked.

Dispelling the Inexperience Excuse

Patience was spouted at the start of the campaign and that was one excuse I even tried to give the benefit of the doubt to. but, when I realised that’s all it was, was an excuse.
I became annoyed with myself.

Our best performers this year have been our young players and in fact league debutants, Ryan Burns, Kevin Toner and Conor Grimes.

So What Cost us??

Looking at the Division 3 campaign as a whole, it is not our underage or inexperience that has cost us.

Discipline, Defensive system slash Tactics(lack of) has.

Discipline

In seven games, We’ve had 4 sending offs and 3 black cards.
We’ve lost a player in every single game due to indiscipline.

It smacks of frustration on the players part.
It’s easy to see why.

maybe it’s because of our

Defensive System Slash 

We conceded 131 points in 7 games, that was the worst in Division 3.

In fact, Louth has the conceded the most scores in the country, across all 4 national league divisions.

Let that sink in for a second.

Tactics (lack of)

I’ve been blue in the face looking for a more defensive structure and defensive is actually the wrong word.
Intelligent structure or just a simple structure would suffice!!

Joe Brolly would love watching us….open games and high scoring but we’re in Division 4 as a result…Joe Brolly doesn’t care about Louth football.
Gimme tight games, intelligent defending in a higher division any day.

It shows how naive we are, we couldn’t even do (copy) what everyone else is doing.

To me, this campaign has been a masked by excuses from the start and Sunday’s performance to me indicates a manager that is out of his depth.