Louth secured a historic victory over Cork this afternoon, booking their place in a first ever All-Ireland quarter-final after a 1-9 to 1-8 win in Inniskeen.
The Leinster county entered this fixture as slight underdogs, with Cork the more favoured side on the back of their form in the Sam Maguire round robin. They looked as though they would justify that tag early in the contest, being the better of the two sides in the opening half as they took a 1-5 to 0-5 lead into the interval.
However, Louth produced a big second half performance to get over the line. This goal from Donal McKenny proved to be a key turning point in the match.
Eyes on the prize 👀@AIB_GAA #GAANOW pic.twitter.com/p00Zg7fOqj
— GAAGO (@GAAGO) June 23, 2024
Cork would manage to get back into the contest after that point, with the two teams level in the dying moments of the game.
A Sam Mulroy free deep into injury time would ultimately prove to be the difference between the sides.
Sam Mulroy has done it for Louth 🎆🎆@AIB_GAA #TheToughest pic.twitter.com/LdNRCtc5ZG
— GAAGO (@GAAGO) June 23, 2024
Louth will now be in the pot for Monday's draw, with a first ever All-Ireland quarter-final appearance coming up next weekend.
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Louth star gives incredible response to Mickey Harte question
This is a fantastic achievement for this Louth team, one that was faced with quite a few challenges before the season even began. Mickey Harte was expected to be in charge for the 2024 campaign, only to leave his post with the county when he was offered the Derry job.
Former Dublin star Ger Brennan came in to replace him, doing a fantastic job as the county hit new heights in recent weeks.
Speaking on GAAGO after the game, Louth defender Dermot Campbell gave an incredibly honest answer to how the departure of Mickey Harte and coach Gavin Devlin affected the group. He also explained the impact the new manager had made since his arrival.
It has added motivation. Look, it was a massive shock to us in September when we were called to a meeting and found out that Mickey and Gavin were gone.
It nearly felt as though there was a death in the family for a couple of days. It felt like that much of a loss.
We knew as players that we couldn't just go back, we couldn't use it as an excuse to go back and fall down the ladder and say 'those three or four years where we had the boys in got us to the level we got to and it wasn't us'. We made sure that didn't happen.
It was bad, it was sour in the way the boys left, but we have to give them so much credit for what they did for us. They took us to that next level.
Now Ger [Brennan] has come in and he has just been a breath of fresh air. He didn't come in and try to rip up the script, he saw what we were good at and watch games over the last couple of years. He spoke to us as players and said 'there's no point bringing in a complete new style of play and dropping what has got ye so far'.
He brought his own tweaks, but he's so refreshing. He's a player's manager and he's very lighthearted, he's great craic and has a serious sense of humour for a manager.
That is maybe something a bit different to the previous manager. As you said, we looked so relaxed coming in and there is that relaxed nature to everything. That's a credit to Ger and his management team.
An incredibly forthcoming response.
Louth will now enter the pot for tomorrow's quarter-final draw, where they will be paired with one of Armagh or Donegal. While they will enter that fixture as underdogs, they have shown so far in this championship that they will pay little attention to that tag.
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