Ring-rusty Louth fail to go the distance with Longford

With the throw-in at Pairc Tailteann yesterday came the bells of freedom for Louth. So long without a competitive match, and yet, for a good while, their football seemed purposeful and sharp.

Then they hit football's equivalent of the marathon's wall and Longford simply ran past them. Two points were all they could muster in the second half, and suddenly those idle evening's during the league were taking their toll.

Without much fuss, Longford saw the signs and so move on to a quarter-final meeting with Dublin in three weeks time. Louth put their name back into the losers' hat with the consolation of at least one more day to look forward to.

Yet, at no time during the 70 minutes did those destinies seem assured. Entering the final five minutes, Longford had earned a three-point lead the hard way and it was fragile at best.

Moments later, the whole game could have been extended a little longer except for Gavin Tonra's body-block to a fiery volley from Martin Farrelly.

When that ball slipped over the crossbar, so ended an afternoon of schizophrenic scoring. Players drifted in and out of this game with remarkable inconsistency, and it seemed as if oxygen was limited in an otherwise perfect setting.

The unexpected pace to Louth's game had pushed them into a five-point lead just beyond the opening quarter-hour and, when they changed ends, they still had a two-point advantage. JP Rooney is just one player who knows it should have been more.

After four minutes, he took a perfect pass from Farrelly and fired an unstoppable shot low into Tonra's net for one of those most memorable career goals. Then, on 12 minutes, he made one of those most memorable misses when he fired inches wide with only the goalkeeper in the way.

Yet, for long periods of that first half, Louth were worthy of their lead. Like Rooney, Mark Stanfield was covering impressive ground in their attack, well supported by Christy Grimes and Ollie McDonnell.

The first shake-up in their defence came just before the half-hour when a limited Stephen Melia mishandled a loose ball. Niall Sheridan flicked short to a hungry Padraic Davis and he didn't need to think twice about shooting for goal. Colm Nally didn't even get a chance to move.

Still, the Longford attack was fragmented. The Barden brothers Enda and Paul were at that stage mysteriously anonymous and it was Davis and James Martin who reduced the gap to two.

From the turnaround, the game hit a major lull. Louth hit three disappointing wides and instead it was Martin who ended 10 minutes of no scoring at the other end.

Longford's Trevor Smullen was among those most eager to step up his game and his point on 47 minutes levelled the scores for the first time since the start. Three minutes later, he put them in front. The tide had now settled and Louth just couldn't find a way of reversing it.

It was 25 minutes since their last score when Stanfield chipped over a free and, from there, the clock ran out with just the couple more exchanges of points from Davis, Smullen and Farrelly. No late championship dramatics on this occasion.

Longford manager Michael McCormack would readily admit that his side was worryingly slow to start, but that, he said, was something they carried-over from the league.

"We let ourselves get isolated in the first half," he said. "In the end, we should have put the game out of reach, but we missed a lot of chances as well. Of course, we worried they would sneak a late goal and that probably would have been Longford's luck."

For opposing manager Paddy Clarke, the lack of games because of foot-and-mouth in the county was a problem, but not an excuse. "I'm certainly not going to blame the lack of match practice," he said, "but we did run out of ideas. We started with 110 per cent and that drifted back to 90 per cent, so maybe it became too easy for us."

Longford 1-11: P Davis 1-5, four frees, T Smullen 0-3, J Martin 0-2, N Sheridan 0-1.

Louth 1-9: JP Rooney 1-2, M Stanfield 0-2, both frees, M Farrelly 0-2, N Malone 0-1, C Grimes 0-1, O McDonnell 0-1.

Referee: D Joyce (Galway).

Attendance: 7,000 (est).