DESPITE watching his native county lose their Division Four opener to Antrim on Saturday, Louth chairman Peter Fitzpatrick says the performance was the most competitive the side has posted in two years.
Fitzpatrick, who is an Independent TD for Louth, was the man who managed to persuade former Tyrone manager Mickey Harte to take the reins in the ‘Wee’ County – just weeks after he departed the Red Hand post he held for 17 years.
But there was no fairytale beginning for Harte and assistant manager Gavin Devlin as they suffered an agonising one-point home defeat to Antrim.
Even though Louth spurned a number of glorious opportunities to put Antrim away, Fitzpatrick was heartened by what he saw in Haggardstown on Saturday.
“As chairman of the county board over the last two years that’s probably the best I’ve seen Louth play,” said Fitzpatrick, a former Louth manager.
“Antrim are a good team and play a fine brand of football. It’s just a pity to lose the first game but we look forward to our next two games against Leitrim and Sligo.”
Louth led by two at the break and were two up on 65 minutes against Enda McGinley’s Antrim side but they conspired to concede three stoppage-time points to put them on the back foot in the race for promotion out of Division Four.
Fitzpatrick added: “In the whole National League campaign last year we weren’t competitive, we weren’t chasing, we weren’t hassling teams. But I must say, Antrim showed more composure, and that’s something we will gain and I just hope the Louth supporters will see what we’re doing.
“If you look at Division Four at the minute – you’ve Sligo, Leitrim, Antrim and Louth – who all have aspirations of getting into Division Three and Division Two. It’s a bad start for us but we were competitive the whole game and never threw the towel in.”
In his exit interview from the Tyrone post last November, Harte insisted he wasn’t ready to retire from managing football teams, and within a matter of weeks he was unveiled as new Louth manager.
“Mickey has brought a bit of professionalism to it, a bit of organisation – Gavin [Devlin] and Mickey have been absolutely fantastic. I said from day one it’s not something you can do overnight,” said the chairman.
“In fairness, I think we’ve something to look forward to, we’ve a game-plan, a template and I have full confidence in Mickey and Gavin that we can get out of Division Four.
“We had a few one-to-one opportunities to win the game and didn’t take them but I thought Antrim’s substitutes did very, very well.
“We’ve a tough game away against Leitrim next week but it’s still in our own destiny. If we win our next two matches we qualify and if we don’t, we won’t be there.”
Sam Mulroy posted a super performance for Louth at the weekend, grabbing two majors and almost made it a hat-trick late on.
The hosts proceeded to kick themselves out of it as Paddy Cunningham, Eunan Walsh and Ryan Murray hit late points for Antrim to edge it.
In terms of the experience of patrolling a different sideline, Harte said: “It’s no different, you are part of a team. The players hurt as much as we do.
“It’s special to win games wherever you are and with the group of people you’re with, but we didn’t do it against Antrim.
“We’re down in the mouth as much as the players are. The only hope is that we can lift ourselves in a week’s time to be better the next day out against Leitrim.
“If you don’t win the next one you stay where you are for another year. We don’t want to do that; we want to do our very best to climb up the ladder a bit, but results will tell the tale.”
