Cats: Louth could have gone easier on us
Duggan admitted hosts Kilkenny were simply not good enough as they lost by a whopping 50-point margin at Ballyragget but reckons that the Wee County could have slowed down towards the end.
“The management of the Louth team kept telling their lads, ‘no let up’,” Duggan said.
“They have a job to do as well but there was no need for 6-34 to 0-2.
“And only for our goalkeeper George Smith, it would have been a hell of a lot more. He was great but the other 15 fellas that were used all did their best too.”
Duggan, a nephew of former Kilkenny All-Ireland SHC medallist Jack, insisted the county football board chiefs will plough on and there will be no withdrawing from this year’sLeinster minor and junior championships.
“In the dressing room after the game, the Louth lads were telling us to stick with it, after we getting beaten 0-2 to 6-34.
“I don’t know if that’s something you would say but it’s said, done and it’s over.
“We have to move on from here, sit down with the county board.
“I don’t know can you blame the county board either. The footballers have the same status as the senior hurlers, everything is laid out for them.
“We can’t seem to get the players, especially at U21. Another factor with the U21s is that some of them are in college and we can’t get them to train but Louth would be the same and to me, it’s no excuse.
“But we can’t fault our lads for Wednesday night. And we’re back playing National League football on Sunday against Fermanagh. We’ve been well beaten in our first couple of games but we’ll keep competing and we’ll have 25 or 26 fellas to keep the wheel turning.”
Duggan added: “What more can we do? Nobody is coming up with suggestions about what we can do or where we can go.
“We have a small core group of people that look after the football to the best of their ability.
“We had 16 players and were grateful to have 16. It would have been awful sad to have had only 14.”
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