{"id":10208,"date":"2022-04-04T20:11:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T20:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10208"},"modified":"2022-04-04T20:11:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T20:11:32","slug":"dundalk-success-means-greater-challenge-for-louth-to-keep-promising-gaelic-football-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10208","title":{"rendered":"Dundalk success means greater challenge for Louth to keep promising gaelic football players"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORMER LOUTH PLAYER Colm Nally says Dundalk\u2019s dominance of the national soccer scene has left local Gaelic football teams with a battle to win over the hearts and minds of talented teenagers.<\/p>\n

Several Louth minor footballers have quit the game to play underage soccer for Dundalk, according to Nally, with a view to ultimately making it in the first team.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s the inevitable consequence of the club\u2019s thrilling progress both at home and abroad under Stephen Kenny though the GAA intend to fight their patch in the north-east.<\/p>\n

Nally is a coaching tutor with the Leinster Council who have launched a new programme throughout the province to recruit former inter-county players for Award 1 Youth\/Adult coaching courses.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a particularly high uptake in Louth with 23 ex-players including Seamus O\u2019Hanlon, Ken and David Reilly and 2010 Leinster final goalkeeper Neil Gallagher all beginning the course in Darver last night.<\/p>\n

The hope is that the players will progress to coaching locally and Nally reckons that, in Louth\u2019s case, the mere presence and high profile of those players could help to convince young players to stick with Gaelic football.<\/p>\n

Asked about Dundalk\u2019s profile in the region, Nally said: \u201cIt\u2019s massive, it is. You\u2019d have a lot of players at 18 or 19 that would be part of Louth minor squads and part of the Dundalk U-19s too. They (Dundalk) have the full first pull on them at the minute.<\/p>\n

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They are following the dream. They have access to European football. The top League of Ireland players are all playing for Dundalk at the minute so their profile is quite high. They are all involved with them and they are all hoping to make the breakthrough.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThey are also all GAA players, all playing with their local clubs but we are hoping we can get a few of them to wear the red of Louth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would be four or five fellas that would have played on our recent minor teams who are now playing with Dundalk and there is a few with Drogheda as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ex-Louth goalkeeper Nally said the ultimate aim is to keep Louth\u2019s best young Gaelic footballers together.<\/p>\n

\u201cLouth is a great sporting county and it keeps producing great sports people, many of them successful players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the Gary Kellys to the Ian Hartes, who have all played Gaelic football, Rob Kearney played with Cooley minors and seniors and his brother, Dave, they\u2019ve all played so it\u2019s a great sporting county and you\u2019d love one day that they\u2019ll all come together, those with the best potential, and just click.<\/p>\n

\u2018Devastated\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think if we get one breakthrough team, the fellas will see that there\u2019s a huge buzz to playing for your county.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2010 Leinster final naturally sticks out as a huge PR opportunity that passed Louth by with Meath winning that game following a late goal that was awarded in error.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t playing at the time and was with my own kids when that match was on, they left the Cusack Stand to run down onto the pitch,\u201d said Nally. \u201cBy the time they got to the bottom that famous goal was scored and they were devastated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they, like hundreds of other kids, were just devastated. They couldn\u2019t believe it. That would have been a massive plus for us to win that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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FORMER LOUTH PLAYER Colm Nally says Dundalk\u2019s dominance of the national soccer scene has left local Gaelic football teams with a battle to win over the hearts and minds of talented teenagers. Several Louth minor footballers have quit the game to play underage soccer for Dundalk, according to Nally, with a view to ultimately making…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}