Hurling & Camogie

Louth seek to break finals hoodoo against Sligo at Croke

&nbsp;Shane Callan has played in all four of their unsuccessful finals and says that revenge will be on his mind this afternoon<br />Picture by Seamus Loughran
 Shane Callan has played in all four of their unsuccessful finals and says that revenge will be on his mind this afternoon
Picture by Seamus Loughran
 Shane Callan has played in all four of their unsuccessful finals and says that revenge will be on his mind this afternoon
Picture by Seamus Loughran

Lory Meagher Cup final: Louth v Sligo (today, 1.30pm, Croke Park, live on TG4)

LOUTH will be hoping to justify their favourites’ tag and finally break their Croke Park hoodoo when they take on Sligo in this afternoon’s curtain raiser.

The Wee County would, in the grand scheme, maybe rather not be here at all. Their four final defeats in the past 11 years have all come in the Nicky Rackard Cup.

Beaten in the final in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2012, they would admit themselves to always having been shy of actually winning a Nicky Rackard. Their average losing margin in those four finals was just under 14 points.

But Sligo have their own ghosts to exorcise as well after losing last year’s entertaining decider to Fermanagh.

Their 3-18 to 3-11 win over Warwickshire in the middle of this campaign and their final day destruction of a deflated Leitrim were the key results in reaching this decider.

But relegated after losing a playoff to Longford last year, Louth have looked the best side in the competition and qualified for the final by topping the group stage with four wins from four.

The first of those was back on April 23 at the expense of today’s opponents, and the side that beat them in that 2008 Nicky Rackard decider.

Louth recovered from an early Kevin Gilmartin goal to control most of the proceedings, and finished strongly when the Yeatsmen did mount a rally that drew them level early in the second half.

Shane Callan, who has played in all four of their unsuccessful finals, says that even eight years later, revenge will be on his mind this afternoon.

“I’m there from ’05 so I played in the first one and hopefully this time around. We played Sligo in 2008 and they gave us a good beating that day so we are looking for some sort of revenge.

“You can’t be playing the occasion more than the match; I think you have to take Croke Park out of it, especially for lads like us who aren’t used to playing in it week-in, week-out.

“Just take it as any other game and use the motivation of previous defeats; especially 08 when Sligo beat us. We’ll use that as a big one over the next few days and hopefully it’ll push us over the line,” he said.