John Doyle has likened Mickey Harte’s impact in Louth to that of Mick O’Dwyer in Kildare over three decades ago.
Having completed 18 seasons with Tyrone, Harte moved straight to Louth last year and has guided them to successive promotions, meaning that they will share Division Two with Kildare next year.
But the counties get a chance to pit their wits against each other before that in Sunday’s Leinster quarter-final, with Louth coming into the game on the back of a seven-game winning streak.
Doyle, who is now part of Glenn Ryan’s Kildare management team, was handed his debut by O’Dwyer back in 2000, when the county won their last Leinster title, a decade after the Kerry legend first landed in the county.
He recalled: “I remember when Micko came to Kildare first, I remember being at the county final back in 1990 and he was introduced to the crowd at half-time and the place was absolutely jammed to the rafters because Mick O’Dwyer was coming to Kildare. It was like the messiah.
“Kildare had been in the doldrums for so long and I think it was the fact that someone like Mick O’Dwyer saw something in Kildare and it did lift the whole county. Came very close there in the early 90s, he left, came back again and then we saw what happened, won two Leinsters and he just lifted the whole county.
“I’m sure in Louth it’s something similar. Louth are a traditionally huge footballing county. You can see with the crowds that are travelling now.
“They’ve gone from Division Four to Division Three to Division Two, it has to lift everyone involved with Louth football.
“That’s a huge plus for them but we have to distance ourselves from that too and make sure that we bring our best performance,” added Doyle, who was speaking at the launch of the 2022 Beko Club Champion competition.
Kildare are seen as the Leinster county most likely to topple Dublin having beaten them in the League this year but they haven’t been competitive against them in the Championship since 2011. Doyle, who works as a games development administrator in the county, is confident that they can now bridge the gap.
“Do we think on our day that we can challenge anyone in Leinster? Absolutely and I think if we didn’t we are in a poor position.
“In Kildare the structures are good, club football is good and I have been involved in a lot of stuff that happens at underage. Young lads are mad to play football for Kildare and that goes right the way from Under-14s right through to 20s.
“We held under-15 trials and we had over 180 kids coming in mad to play football for Kildare and that is a huge, huge benefit that many other counties don’t have and it is a strong position to be in so I think it is up to the other counties to try and get themselves up to Dublin.
“Lookit, we can go into finances and all that comes with that but our job is to put the best 15 Kildare players out to perform at the best to take on any team in Leinster or beyond and I think, and maybe some people will say I have blind loyalty, I certainly think Kildare on their day will be a match for anybody.”
Doyle confirmed that the long-serving Eoin Doyle will not be available for Sunday’s tie in Tullamore, a legacy of his club Naas’s run to January’s Leinster club final.
“He probably carried an injury through the Championship and on into the Leinster Championship with Naas, and the pressure he was under trying to play with a bit of an injury and manage, it just shows the calibre of that man.
“So he's getting there. He's just not there yet. He's getting very close. Those injuries are clearing up now.”
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