McEneaney looking to build for future

Louth manager Eamonn McEneaney goes into Sunday's Division Two final of the Allianz National Football League in the enviable position of knowing his job is safe for at least another four years. Even if the rapid progress of recent months goes off the tracks McEneaney has until 2010 to get Louth football to where he wants it to be, which is competing for a Leinster title.

And should they beat Donegal on Sunday it's still only a small step in his grand plan. Louth won the inaugural Division Two title in 2000 and that proved to be one of those false dawns, so McEneaney insisted the county thought long-term when they offered him the job late last year.

"The first thing I asked for was a five-year appointment," says McEneaney, a native of Monaghan. "I know most county boards have the habit of only giving two or three years, but I wasn't going to take the job under any other circumstances.

"I've been living here in Louth for 16 years, and I knew what was going on. I'd been involved with juvenile football for the past 10 years and when I asked about the job I felt maybe the time was right to get in at the top and start changing things around, because the way things were going we just weren't making any impact. For all the lads coming through at 15 or 16 years of age there was no incentive to play for the county.

"I'm delighted with the start we've made, but it's only a start. If you're coming from such a low base of success at senior, under-21 and minor level you have to start at the very bottom. My idea was to start with the young teams, because I have been working with under-13 and under-15 teams before I took this job, and I still think that's where the time and effort has to be put in."

When he talks about "changing things around" McEneaney refers to the entire structures and operations of Louth football: "When they won the Division Two title in 2000 it did galvanise a lot of support at the time, but Paddy Clarke (then manager) was gone the year after.

"He probably should have got a longer stint, but I have him back in now as coaching administrator. I know he's a great coach and hopefully he'll influence squads coming through.

"We also changed the way the county panel was structured and run, and that meant bringing in a liaison officer. By and large county boards have enough to do, and there's so much involved in running the county team that you need someone focusing on that task."

So far the success of the changes speaks for itself. Louth were unbeaten in Division Two until their final match against Westmeath, but by then were already assured of promotion.

"We just started out to make progress," explains McEneaney, "and maybe win three or four games along the way. In trying to do that we managed to win all the games, bar the last one against Westmeath. So it was great to get promotion, and it means no matter what happens for the rest of the season we've something in the bank for next year.

"The last time they got up they didn't have a great run, but we're looking forward to doing better next time. But I always felt we'd quite a few players in Louth, and we should be getting better results than we were. And I think the results of the last few weeks have shown that."

McEneaney has announced an unchanged team - not surprising given their impressive eight-point win over Limerick in the semi-final last Sunday. The team contains several of their more experienced players of recent years, who have clearly been revived under the new management, including men like Christy Grimes, Mark Stanfield, JP Rooney and Arron Hoey.

LOUTH (SF v Donegal): S Reynolds; D Brennan, C Goss, J Carr; J O'Brien, P McGinnity, J Neary; M Farrelly, P Keenan; C Grimes, M Brennan, M Stanfield; JP Rooney, A Hoey, D Clarke.