Louth GAA

Allianz Football League Division 3 Final: Louth 1-14 Limerick 0-12. Louth's revival under Mickey Harte was reaffirmed on Saturday evening with an ultimately ...

Midfielder Tommy Durnin followed up with a sweet point off the outside of the boot. For Limerick it must have felt like a second dose of bad medicine after the Leinster side scored 0-7 without reply to win in UL during the pool stages. Hugh Bourke got a pair of them.

Louth staged a second-half comeback to defeat Limerick, 1-14 to 0-12 in the Allianz Football League Division 3 final at Croke Park, while Cavan edged Tipperary ...

Louth forced for a turnover and broke forward. Deep into injury-time, Sweeney declined a shot on goal from a short-range free, instead opting for a point. The first half was a cagey affair, with the sides trading points.

When the three-time All-Ireland winner first came into the Louth dressing-room, they were mired in the basement division of the Allianz Football League. Now ...

A late pair of Mulroy tap-over frees, sandwiching Enright’s second, left Limerick narrowly ahead at the midpoint, 0-7 to 0-6. Louth came to Headquarters in a rich vein of form, having won five on the spin to top Division 4. For Harte, this five-point victory could serve as the perfect tonic ahead of their Leinster SFC opener against Carlow on April 24. Fittingly, Durnin soared to claim two Louth kickouts in the home straight, helping ensure there would be no late dramatics. The last time Louth won a final at GAA Headquarters was the Division 4 decider in 2016. Just in case you missed that message, Byrne delivered his own swaggering salute after landing his fourth point from play, and then centre-back Niall Sharkey gave another fist pump after advancing to score from the right wing.

Paddy Keenan would love to be playing under Mickey Harte. Not as much as Mickey Harte would love to be managing Paddy Keenan.

It was the kicking, the catching and the cross-field passing that made him great as a Gaelic footballer and, in recent years, it's the lack of emphasis on those same skills that, as a spectator, has put him off. That was 2010 and I was still pissed off about the way the Leinster final finished up. I think the county game is a bit formulaic, too structured, players are conditioned not to take the chance, not to take on the long pass, just to pass it sideways. "So to be honest with you, I completely drifted away from county football then, like a lot of people in the county here really. Take it from one of the best. For me, the footballer that can kick off both feet is twice the footballer." " Teams are gone so professional now that, with all the stats and so on, there are less snap decisions in games and flair players are more restrained. "In theory, it'd be great to give up work and just play and dedicate all your time to it, but someone has to pay the bills. He says that, with typical humility, it's only a coincidence that things have gone down the glen for the Wee county since but, having lost their best player when he was just 29 years of age, it was always going to be an uphill battle for them. But if we can just hold this panel, this management with Mickey Harte and Gavin Devlin - hopefully there's a chink of light," he adds. For a long time he wasn't, having grown disenchanted with the game after his retirement in 2014 but, as everyone in Louth will tell you, there's something in the air now. The people of Louth would move the Cooley mountains to have him playing this Saturday. And rightly so.