Former player Diarmuid McCarthy is in charge of the Louth hurlers this year
Louth’s hurlers made a losing start to the year when they went down to GMIT on a 4-22 to 1-9 scoreline in the first round of the Kehoe Cup in Darver on Sunday.
There were a number of new faces on the Wee County team for Diarmuid McCarthy’s first competitive game in charge.
However, despite some promising moments a three goal burst from the visitors inside five second half minutes ensured that the students ran out easy winners in the game.
Louth were well in it in the early stages with points from Shane Maguire and Shane Callan leaving the sides level at 0-2 apiece. GMIT then responded with six unanswered points and although David Mahony replied with a free, a goal moments later rom Shane Moloney left the Connacht outfit 1-8 to 0-3 ahead.
Mahony did manage a further point for Louth before the break but it couldn’t prevent them from trailing by 1-14 to 0-4 at the interval.
Ronan Byrne and Mahony fired over quickfire points on the restart before the latter found the net to close the gap to 1-16 to 1-8.
However, GMIT upped the tempo once more and scored 3-1 in the space of five minutes to set them up for an easy win with Moloney adding a second goal and Gary Brennan also hitting a brace.
LOUTH: J Connolly; P McCormack, J Carter, A McCrave; C Hayes, B Carter, C Ryan; J Condon, S Callan (0-2); D O’Hanrahan (0-1), A Mackin, G Rellis; David Mahony (1-4, 4f), D Kettle, S Maguire (0-1). Subs: R Byrne (0-1) for D Kettle (34), S Kettle for Maguire (56), D Reid for McCrave (62), O Drumm for G Rellis (67).
Talk of the Town 