Leinster SFC Final: Louth end 68 year wait for Delaney Cup

Leinster Senior Football Championship Final

LOUTH 3-14 MEATH 1-18

By John Harrington at Croke Park

For the first time in 68 years, Louth are Leinster Senior Football Champions.

It was always going to take something special to end that long wait and their players showed incredible resilience, self-belief, and patience to make history happen.

Louth teams and their supporters have suffered a lot since 1957 so it was maybe fitting that they had to suffer some more in Croke Park today before they finally got their hands on the Delaney Cup.

Nervy and out of sorts in the first half they managed to keep themselves in the game by scoring three goals that were largely against the run of play.

And even when they finally found their groove in the second-half to turn a four-point deficit into a two-point lead, you wondered was it just not going to be their day when they conceded a 62^nd minute goal that edged Meath ahead again.

But in the face of adversity Louth showed tremendous courage to grit their teeth and come again.

It was fitting that team captain, Sam Mulroy, should regain the initiative for the Wee county by converting a superb two-point free from over 50 yards out.

His day was a microcosm of the entire team’s. It just wasn’t quite clicking for him for a lot of the game and he missed with his first four shots of the second-half.

But he scored with his next four, including that two-pointer, and in the final reckoning that stubborn refusal to accept anything other than victory today was what got them over the line.

Considering the weight of history, you could only admire how the Louth players held their nerve in the second-half when all of their supporters must have been on their last one.

Their patience in possession and superb ball-handling ground Meath down phase by phase, minute by minute, and in the end the Royals died the death of a thousand cuts.

That second half was a very different game of football to the one we saw in the first half.

Both teams started nervously, but especially Louth, and as the half wore on Meath grew with the game.

They were 0-5 to 0-2 ahead by the 17^th minute when Billy Hogan drove over a beautifully struck two-point free, but then Louth drew level when Mulroy scored their first goal of the match from the penalty spot after Donal Keogan has fouled Kieran McArdle.

Despite struggling to play with much fluency, Louth surged three points ahead when Ryan Burns struck for their second goal on 24 minutes, but thereafter Meath took control.

In an incredible purple-patch they scored seven points in just five minutes. It came from a complete dominance of Louth’s kick-outs. Time and again Meath won the ball cleanly, got on the front foot, and cut the Louth defence to pieces with their strong running, slick handling, and accurate shooting.

Eoghan Frayne kicked a free, Ruairi Kinsella landed a two-pointer, and four more points flowed over from James Conlon, Sean Coffey, and Kinsella and Frayne again.

But just when it looked like Meath were going to go in at half-time with a healthy lead, Louth struck back with their third goal, this one by Craig Lennon.

It was the sort of goal he surely day-dreamed about scoring in a Leinster Final when he was a kid in the back garden as he steamed past Donal Keogan and Jack Flynn, pinned his ears back and then hammered the ball to the top left corner of the net.

That left the score reading 0-13 to 3-3 in Meath’s favour, a one-point advantage not quite reflective of their first-half dominance.

You thought the Royals might kick on in the second half when Matthew Costello started and finished a great move and then Hogan landed another two-point free to push them four ahead, but Louth hung in there and a Ryan Burns two-pointer gave them some badly needed momentum.

Meath sprung Jordan Morris, back from an injury lay-off, from the bench and his first act was to kick a fine point that pushed his team 0-18 to 3-6 ahead, but that would be Meath’s last score for 15 minutes.

In that period of the game they could hardly manage to get their hands on the ball such was Louth’s dominance off Meath kick-outs.

Men like Tommy Durnin, Conor Grimes, and Ciaran Downey were dominating the skies and when the ball did come to ground it was invariably a red jersey that was hungriest to gobble it up.

Conor Grimes kicked a great score from a tight angle and then when Mulroy scored his first point from play it felt like a watershed moment.

The Louth captain had done great work throughout the game up until that point dictating patterns of play, but to see their talisman land a score of his own seemed to send an adrenalin shot of self-belief throughout the rest of the team as well as the tens of thousands of supporters in the stadium.

Ciaran Downey edged Louth ahead and Mulroy increased their advantage to two before Meath struck that 62^nd minute goal after they forced a rare turnover in the middle third.

From there Morris raced down field and put through Costello who finished clinically to the bottom left corner.

The question now was would Louth be rattled by this set-back? The answer was a resounding no. They stuck methodically to the plan, kept turning the screw on Meath, and were rewarded as Mulroy kicked that two-point free and then Craig Lennon pushed them two ahead in the final minute of normal time after a period of Louth keep-ball.

The final few seconds of the game must have been excruciating for Louth supporters as their team tried to play down the clock but found themselves dropping deeper and deeper into their own half.

It looked like Donal McKenny might be stripped of possession close to his own goal for a second, but referee Martin McNally, who had an excellent game, correctly deemed he was fouled.

The hooter blew, the ball was kicked into the Cusack Stand, and the stadium erupted with the noise of tens of thousands of Louth people exploding with joy.

Scorers for Louth: Sam Mulroy 1-7 (pen, 2f, 1 tpf, 1 45), Ryan Burns 1-3 (1 tp) Craig Lennon 1-1, Bevan Duffy, Ciaran Downey, Conor Grimes, all 0-1.

Scorers for Meath: Matthew Costello 1-1, Eoghan Frayne 0-4 (3f), Billy Hogan 0-4 (2 tpf), Ruairí Kinsella 0-4 (1 tp), Donal Keogan, Sean Coffey, Keith Curtis, James Conlon, Jordan Morris 0-1.

LOUTH: Niall McDonnell; Daire Nally, Dermot Campbell, Donal McKenny; Conal McKeever, Peter Lynch, Craig Lennon; Tommy Durnin, Andy McDonnell; Bevan Duffy, Ciaran Downey, Conor Grimes; Kieran McArdle, Sam Mulroy, Ryan Burns. Subs: Ciaran Keenan for Kieran McCardle (45), Paul Matthews for Andy McDonnell (47), Ciaran Byrne for Ryan Burns (62), Dara McDonnell for Bevan Duffy (65), Emmet Carolan for Daire Nally (70)

MEATH: Billy Hogan; Seamus Lavin, Seán Rafferty, Brian O’Halloran; Donal Keogan, Seán Coffey, Ciarán Caulfield; Jack Flynn, Bryan Menton; Conor Duke, Ruairí Kinsella, Keith Curtis; Matthew Costello, James Conlon, Eoghan Frayne. Subs: Jordan Morris for Keith Curtis (45), Shane Walsh for Conor Duke (53), Aaron Lynch for Ruairi Kinsella (62), Daithí McGowan for James Conlon (68)

Ref: Martin NcNally (Monaghan)