Putting pain game behind them

GAELIC GAMES:IT REMAINS the most vivid incident of last year's football championship. Louth, on the verge of a first provincial title in 53 years, were traumatised when a blatant infringement was overlooked and a goal awarded to Meath in the dying seconds of the 2010 Leinster final.

Picking up the pieces after such a setback, compounded by the crowd trouble that followed – which it was confirmed this week has seen the DPP recommend prosecutions – and the days of wondering whether a rematch would be ordered proved challenging and little resistance was raised when Dublin loomed in the qualifiers.

With the new season at hand, it’s now up to the county to pick themselves up and move on and that’s what manager Peter Fitzpatrick believes is happening in the county, who play Wicklow in tomorrow’s O’Byrne Cup quarter-final in Drogheda.

Already there’s been some added adversity for the new year with three of last year’s most prominent performers, centrefielder Brian White, and defenders Mick Fanning and All Star nominee John O’Brien, being forced to emigrate in order to find employment.

Fitzpatrick’s plans to find replacements have been enhanced by the return of Ronan Carroll after an injury-plagued 2010, a player who is seen as a ready-made replacement for White as All Star Paddy Keenan’s centrefield partner.

“Time’s a good healer even though it was probably the biggest blow we ever got in football,” says Fitzpatrick about the trauma of last July. “There’s great confidence in the panel and 2010 is gone. Now we can concentrate on 2011.

“We had a couple of really good trials and saw 60 young fellas working hard. There was a challenge match against Down, which we won 0-16 to 0-11 and a couple of other wins so things are going pretty well. We’ll have a settled panel for Westmeath in the first league match.”

Last season’s league was frustrating and Louth ended up two points adrift of the leading pack and condemned to another season in Division Three. In recent years that division has proved the most competitive and getting a ticket out all the more difficult.

“We hope to improve and achieve promotion but there are eight teams well capable of beating each other so it won’t be easy but we’ll be aiming for that.”

Beneath the radar however Louth football has been thriving in the past couple of seasons, according to Fitzpatrick, with 2010 a definite positive even if the most abiding image is of disappointment.

“Last year our under-21s were only beaten in extra time by the team that went on to win the All-Ireland (Dublin) and we have the Leinster junior championship for the past two years. There’ll be 12 or 13 of those under-21s available again this year.”

Like many managers he’s not enamoured of the close-season training ban but says that the restrictions haven’t unduly hindered preparations for the season ahead.

“It’s very hard for an amateur organisation to tell people that they can’t train together. We’re not so badly affected because we’ve a gym in Darver (Louth GAA Centre of Excellence) and the lads can come and go down there during the off season.”

The O’Byrne Cup has provided the county with something of a platform in the past two years, as strong starts to each season saw the county winning their fourth title and first since 1990 two years ago and reaching the final 12 months ago only to lose to DCU.

If follow-through in the NFL was underwhelming, last year was the county’s most successful championship, featuring a first appearance in a Leinster final in 50 years even if that was to end in excruciating disappointment.

Fitzpatrick had a long playing career with the county, during which he won an under-21 Leinster in 1981 and played in five senior semi-finals without making the breakthrough, but he also showed promise as a soccer player in his younger days and in 1983 was part of the Dundalk team which won the League of Ireland B title.

“I was involved when Jim McLaughlin was there,” he says. “In Dundalk there’s a great mix between Gaelic and soccer and the games get on well together. But they are absolutely different sports and when a young fella gets to 18 it’s hard to play both codes.”

In last summer’s qualifier he came across a familiar face, Mickey Whelan the Dublin coach and selector under whom he had played at both club and county level in the 1980s.

“Mickey was 20 years ahead of his time. He’s a fantastic reader of the game and I’m delighted to see him at last getting some recognition.”

At present Peter Fitzpatrick is getting recognition of his own and is mulling over an invitation to stand for a Fine Gael nomination in the Louth constituency. He’s yet to announce his decision. Asked about the potential political career he shows a promising ability to sidestep the question.

“Listen, I’ve Mick O’Dwyer coming to Drogheda for an O’Byrne Cup game. I’m going to concentrate on football for the moment.”