1 week Ago
TOMMY DURNIN REMEMBERS doing an interview with a local reporter 10 years ago and being asked, ‘What is the dream?’ A Leinster senior football title, the Louth midfielder answered. “I remember him kind of half laughing,” Durnin recalls. At the outset of a new provincial championship campaign, that dream remains.
Louth ended a 13-year wait for a Leinster final appearance in 2023, and returned last year, though were defeated by Dublin on both occasions. The Dubs are seeking 15 in-a-row this year, but Durnin feels the Wee county could end their remarkable dominance and reign supreme in Leinster for the first time since 1957. “That would be the dream.
It’s probably the best chance you’d ever have had in years, in terms of set-up and everything. That’s what we’re striving for. Leinster and playing Division 1 football, that would be the ultimate goal.
“Even speaking to some of the guys here today, it’s wide open, Leinster. Dublin are still kings, but there are a lot of hungry teams out there that are pushing and want to strive for better.” Durnin has spent his entire career doing so.
Incredibly, he never played underage football for Louth. The 2024 All-Star nominee dabbled in the sport, along with hurling and soccer during his youth in Reaghstown, but farming took precedence. It wasn’t until he went to college in IT Carlow that football really took off.
The business student went from being in awe of Brian Hurley, Ben Brosnan and Kevin Feely and wondering if he was good enough to play Sigerson Cup, to starring alongside them. In his final year, the county call arrived from Aidan O’Rourke, and Durnin has played every season since. “I look back at it now and I’m actually probably glad.
I see some of the younger lads, they’re there under 14, 16, 18, 20. Now they get to 25, maybe nearly burn out. “It’s my 12th or 13th season and I’ve loved every minute of it.
I’ve seen the tough Division Four (seasons) and getting knocked out maybe first time in the championship. Now where we are, you’re never happy. You’re always striving, trying to do the best you can.
“We have that culture. The more people that buy into it and grow with us (the better). We’re not fighting for things.
We have all the structures in place, the facilities. It helps. It’s just the mindset now of us to go out and perform and know we’re capable of beating any team in the country on our day.
” Louth’s resurgence has been striking in recent years, and much of it comes down to one man. “To be honest, it all started when Mickey Harte came in first,” Durnin says of the legendary Tyrone manager. “Everyone was looking at Louth and what was going to happen.
It didn’t happen overnight — the last three or four years, from Division 4, Division 3 and Division 2, and that kind of consistency. “When Mickey came in there was certain standards that were put in from the players, and the county board, and everyone was aligning together. We all communicated and we all just understood what needed to be done.
“There have been some great players who haven’t committed to Louth panels in the past but I feel like all the top players are playing for Louth. That’s where they want to be. At underage, some of them were going to soccer, now they’re all developing into Gaelic games (players).
The structures are there, the management, the S&C, it’s all developing from a young age.” “And people want to play with Louth,” the 32-year-old adds. “People are walking around in Louth jerseys when usually they’d be wearing Man United or Liverpool jerseys.
It’s great to see. It’s an upward curve. It’s important for us to keep reaching those milestones.
“At the end of the day, we don’t have any trophies to show for it. The big, big push is getting over that line for a Leinster final. We’ve pushed Dublin closer and closer but we want to win, we want to have something to look back on and put in Darver and say, ‘Look, this team did that.
’” Harte departed for Derry in September 2023, after three years, back-to-back league promotions, and that monumental Leinster final appearance. Ger Brennan took the reins thereafter: he has been a “breath of fresh air,” and brings “that winning mentality from Dublin”. “He would tell us stories of when he first started in Division 2 with Dublin and Dublin couldn’t win in All-Irelands and the pressures they had.
There is a good structure there with Ger and Niall Moyna and different guys. There is a good experience. “As Ger would tell you, he’s learning as well.
It’s a combined effort. No one has the right answers. It’s a good way to look at it.
Maybe Mickey Harte was more strict and obeyed. We’ve seen the results that we can get when we all come together and work as a team. It’s just involving that, players, management, county boards, everyone is working under the same terms.
” After an up-and-down Division 2 campaign where Louth survived on the final day after a raft of injuries — captain Sam Mulroy is still out — the full focus is on championship. It all starts against Laois at Cedral St Conleth’s Park, Newbridge, tomorrow afternoon — an interesting fixture for Durnin’s household as his partner, Maggie, is from the O’Moore county. He jokes about potential tension in the build-up, while their four-month-old daughter, Ella Mae has a half-and-half jersey.
But it’s all serious business for Durnin, who works as a sourcing specialist for Hiab, a global company which provides load handling solutions, and also has his own farm. Leinster football glory remains the dream, but he knows reaching the final comes with a caveat: it is necessary for Louth to stamp their ticket to the All-Ireland series. Dropping to the Tailteann Cup, Durnin says, would be a big setback.
“No disrespect but we want to be developing every year, we want to go further and further. We want to be in the All-Ireland series. We want to be playing the bigger teams.
“Last year we had the likes of Kerry and Dublin, and Cork as well, they’re massive games and they bring you on more than in the Tailteann Cup. For us as a county, you want to be in the All-Ireland series. So that’s where we’re striving but we went the hard way! There’s something about Louth, we like to do things differently.
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