By Michael Devlin

Louth ladies football captain Kate Flood says valuable lessons were learned after last year’s All-Ireland Junior Ladies Football final defeat to Limerick.

The Munster girls scored three goals in five first-half minutes to open up a big gap by halftime, and added two more later in the game to run out convincing winners on a score of 5-6 to 0-8.

Flood kicked three points that day, and she will lead the Wee County back into the final this Sunday against Fermanagh with full intentions of avoiding the mistakes of twelve months ago.

“We didn’t do too great last year, but we’ve been concentrating on fixing the problems that we had. We’ve been working hard at training, we had a good training camp on the lead up, so hopefully we can do one better.

“You can’t run for the whole game on the big pitch in Croke Park, so we kind of had to change the style that we play. I suppose it’s a team sport, so it’s about getting everyone at the same fitness and hopefully going the step further.”

The Wee County retained their Leinster title this year before seeing off London and Carlow to top Group A and book a safe passage to the semi-finals, where they overcame Ulster champs Antrim.

The nature of their win over London particularly exemplified a steely resolve and belief that Flood believes will stand to the team this Sunday. Trailing by six points with seven minutes on the clock, Louth dug deep to carve out a one-point victory in Dundalk.

“We knew going into the game how good they are, you can’t write them off at all. We were lucky enough to get the one-point win at the end to get through. It was down to sheer hard work from everyone to get us over the line.

“We knew that the fitness was there, that we were able to get through. We didn’t really perform to our best against London, but it was just the work rate of our girls against London and our defence especially, they don’t get enough credit but they’re absolutely amazing, have been amazing all year. They have kept us in the games.

“It’s far better winning by one point than by 10 or 20. It gave us the drive then on at training, we stepped it up another level and we’ve just been working so hard since that game. We’ve been working on what we have to do to develop as players.

“It’s a massive day here in Croke park for everyone, some of the girls haven’t been here before and some of us have.

“You just have to keep focused and not let the day swallow you up really. It’s about keeping levelheaded and concentrating on what you have to do during the game.”