Louth minor football has hit an all time low. The drubbing at the hands of Dublin in 2001 was a huge embarrassment. But it was not the fault of the players or the team management, whose efforts are beyond question. The problems lie much deeper - within the very fabric of Louth GAA. Minor Board Secretary Gerry Connor recognises this and is calling for wholesale changes across the board - with immediate effect. The penny has finally dropped. Something is rotten in the state of Louth underage football. This realisation has hit the powerbrokers of Wee County GAA like a blow to the stomach and they are finally ready to act. With Louth football threatening to die on its knees, immediate action is needed. The heavy 4-13 to 0-6 Leinster MFC first round defeat of an ill-prepared Louth at the hands of Dublin at Parnell Park on Saturday May 26th could prove the straw that finally broke the camel's back. Louth haven't won a championship match at minor level since 1993. And, despite the best efforts of those directly involved with the teams, there's no sign of any corners being turned. Gerry Connor, the Minor Board Secretary, feels that drastic action is required to save the day. He wants to see a complete revamp of the structure of football within the county and the introduction of a system that will enable Louth to produce decent minor and under 21 teams, rather than hamper them. "The result against Dublin was very disappointing," he says. "It certainly didn't help that the Leinster league was abolished earlier in the year due to the Foot & Mouth outbreak. That was due to take place in March/April but when the outbreak occurred at Proleek nobody really knew what way things were going to pan out. Leinster Council just decided to forget about the provincial minor league altogether. We had only played one match when it was called off and our lads really needed those games." Louth minor football stands accused of being stuck in a rut. And it's hard to imagine it putting up any sort of plausible defence. Gerry agrees with this assessment: "The problem at the minute is that every year is the same. The manager is appointed and the first thing he has to do is find his players. With the minors, there has never been any structure in place where we could look at earlier teams or development squads and say 'look, there's the basis of your squad, now you can add or subtract as you seem fit'. There was no continuity there so Jim [McDonnell, Louth minor manager in 2000 and 2001] had to go out himself and look at all the players and actually find a panel from scratch, hold trial matches and build a team. "That was a very long process and a lot of work for one individual. He had no basis whatsoever from which to start. Jim threw himself into it and started out in January with a couple of sessions. Then the Foot & Mouth scare materialised and all his plans went up in smoke." Suddenly, Jim and his selectors were facing an impossible task. "He had his panel and knew what he wanted to do with them, but he couldn't get working with them. Ideally, we'd have been using the Leinster league to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the team and iron out any rough edges. "The irony is that this was a very good squad . . . if we'd been able to develop them. It was the best forward line we've had at minor level in five years. But two weeks just before the championship is all the time they had to prepare together as a team. "The Foot & Mouth restrictions had actually been lifted six weeks before that but all the county minors were playing adult club football - which I think is wrong. This meant they were never really available to Jim McDonnell. Louth should be able to put out its very best minor team and they should be given all the support and time needed to get the team playing as well as possible. "That hasn't been the case, though. Once the restrictions were lifted, we had a glut of junior, senior, intermediate, under 21 and minor games going on all over the county. The players were too busy and there was nothing saying they had to make the county minor team a priority. Also, 70% of them were doing exams. When you take all these factors into consideration, you can see that the time the manager had with his players was very limited. "Because of all the time restrictions and the glut of matches right across the board, there was no real opportunity to organise proper challenge matches or training sessions or anything. So they went to Parnell Park in the hope that something might happen - against a Dublin side that's actually a development squad team." Gerry is confident the county minors will give a better account of themselves next year: "Next year's team will be the 'unofficial' development squad team from the year before the development squads were officially launched. This squad has been playing together for three years, coming through together from under 14 level. So there should be a lot more there to work with. But, still, unless the clubs, players and County Board and everybody else gets behind the minor team we're not going to achieve anything because it takes a lot of work and commitment. "We're looking at the structures within the county from the top down to the bottom. The quality players aren't coming through to the county teams because the structure has never been there. There are players playing senior with Louth now who never played for the minors for different reasons - they were identified but just wouldn't give the commitment or make themselves available." Gerry knows it really is time to act: "It won't fix itself," he correctly observes. "It's going to take a lot of thought and a lot of action. Unfortunately the kind of people who are prepared to give that sort of commitment are very thin on the ground. "I couldn't fault the management. Jimmy has been excellent. He brought in Aidan McGuinness (St Mary's), Aidan Kirk (Clan Na Gael) and John Gallagher (Wolfe Tones) to give him representative voices from all corners of the county. He left no stone unturned but just never had a chance. I know he was very unhappy with the time restraints and the huge amount of pressure placed on the players - and rightly so." There is a train of thought which suggests that one of the reasons for Louth's failings at underage level is the popularity of soccer in the county, with so many young lads being brought across the Irish Sea for trials with top clubs. "A lot of players go away but very few of them actually break through," notes Gerry. "In fact, only three have made it in fifteen years. I honestly don't think it's a huge problem and I feel there's room for the two codes to co-exist." Tweet

Most Read Stories