By John Harrington

Last night 23 former Louth footballers met up in the Louth GAA Center of Excellence in Darver for to begin the Award 1 Youth/Adult Coaching Course.

The initiative is part of a partnership between the GPA and Leinster GAA to assist inter-county players become competent and experienced coaches.

In Louth’s case, something positive has come from something tragic, because the large turn-out last night was inspired by the untimely death last year of former Louth footballer Stephen Melia.

“When Stephen passed away, a lot of the guys decided they wanted to honour his memory, so they planned a blitz, 7-a-side, for all the clubs in Louth, and the couple of clubs in Dublin Stephen played with, O’Dwyers and stuff like that,” explains former Louth footballer, Colm Nally, who is a Coaching Tutor with Leinster GAA.

“We formed a Whatsapp group and that’s how we communicated, so we just used that to see was there anybody interested in getting involved in that (the coaching initiative).

“We had great interest, 25/26 players initially signed up, and we got 23 committed to start tonight.”

Nally hopes by getting former Louth players involved in the county as coaches, they’ll be able to arrest the talent drain they’re currently experiencing form Gaelic Games to soccer in the county which has been accelerated in recent times by the success of League of Ireland club Dundalk FC.

“It’s massive, it is,” says Nally. “You’d have a lot of players 18 or 19 that would be part of Louth minor squads, and part of the Dundalk under-19s. They have the full first pull on them at the minute.

“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, so they are all involved with them, they are all hoping to make the breakthrough.

“They 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.”

“There would be four or five fellas that would have played even on our recent minor teams who are now playing with Dundalk and there is a few with Drogheda as well.

“Drogheda and Dundalk are very urbanised. You have six GAA clubs in Drogheda and something similar in Dundalk, so they’d all be playing with their friends in that sort of community environment, but they are also playing with the soccer teams as well.

“I think when they come out of minor what really happens is that these four or five fellas are seen to gravitate towards the soccer rather than the GAA.”

Nally is convinced there is huge untapped potential in Louth GAA if they can start getting a greater market-share in the two major towns, Dundalk and Drogheda.

“Massive, massive,” he says. “Like, Louth is a great sporting county and it keeps producing great sportspeople. Most of them successful players, from the Gary Kellys to the Ian Hartes, have all played Gaelic Football. Rob Kearney played with Cooley minors and he played for Cooley seniors, and his brother Dave.

“They've all played, it's a great sporting county, and you'd love one day that they'd all come together, those with the best potential, and just click.

“Because I think if we got one breakthrough team, the fellas will see that there's a huge buzz to playing for your county.”

That breakthrough nearly came in 2010 when they were denied a Leinster title by the concession of a late, controversial goal against Meath. Nally looks back on that match as a huge opportunity missed, but is hopeful Louth can get back there again.

“We'd be liking it to the Stephen Roche effect,” he says. “When he won the Tour de France, everyone wanted a new bike. It was the same in Louth, there was 40,000 people at that match. I was with my own kids there.

“I wasn't playing at the time, but my kids when that match was on, they left the Cusack Stand to run onto the pitch. And by the time they got to the bottom that famous goal was scored and they were devastated.

“I know they, like hundreds of other kids, were just devastated. They couldn't believe it, like. That would have been a massive plus for us to win that.

“There was a hangover for a while, but what's there, what's tangible for Louth is a Leinster Final. We got there recently, like, in 2010, six years ago. So it's still there. We feel that if we got the structures right and got the young players coming through we could possibly achieve that again.”