Aidan O'Rourke says Louth are a better team now than they were at the end of the league.

Since the curtain came down on a successful Division Two campaign, O'Rourke's players have been training hard as a group and also playing well for their clubs. The manager is pleased with how things have gone:

"They have been excellent to a man," the Armagh man says in The Drogheda Independent. "They've worked extremely hard and the competition for places is serious - this time next week there'll be a few disappointed men.

"We've been to two or three [club] league games every round and we called up a few lads that have impressed us.

"Obviously, we needed to get a look at them in a county environment but some of them acquitted themselves very well and it was a useful exercise.

"It's important for them to be playing competitive football and it's good for their confidence too, going back to their clubs. We were lucky enough that the few injuries that cropped up came at the start.

"We changed the focus after the league ended in two main areas. Firstly, we started to get the players conditioned for championship football.

"We've also been fine-tuning our style of play and how we want them to play the game. I think we're a better unit now than we were in the national league but time will tell." Tweet

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