Louth's Kate Flood calls times on distinguished inter-county career with All-Ireland medal

Irish Independent

2 days ago

The St Patrick's Lordship club player made the announcement when speaking with local Louth journalists after Sunday's game.
Recently married and now with another All-Ireland medal in her back pocket, Flood joked her year, 'hasn't been that bad' and when asked about he own plans for next season, she said: 'It's something I've obviously thought about and yeah, it's not an easy one for me to say, but this was my last outing for Louth. I'm very proud of it.'
With a slight quiver in her voice she added: 'I'm not going to get emotional now, I've done enough crying, but it's been an absolute privilege to be able to pull on the county jersey and run out with the girls that have been there, and the previous girls, but there's savage talent coming through Louth and I just wish them all the best.'
Flood's announcement came at the end of an interview where she reflected on the game, included the worst possible start for Louth with Antrim converting a penalty in the opening minutes.
'Yeah, the penalty, we weren't obviously expecting it,' said Flood.
'But we prepared ourselves for moments like that in the game. The girls, they're unreal...we gave away the penalty, that's fine, but we dug deep and then we got the scores on the board going into half-time so we were one up and we were happy enough with that.'
Louth showed no signs of panic after the early setback and eventually worked their way back into the game but psychologically how much of a boost was it drawing level and then going in ahead at half-time?
'We know Antrim are a strong side, they're fast, they're physical and going into the game we just had to focus on what we'd been training to do,' she said.
'We've done scenarios where we might have given away a penalty or been down five points at half-time and we just stuck to the game plan and luckily enough that got us over the line.'
'We knew if we got a couple of points ahead that we'd be able to drive on. There's plenty of girls that are well able to take scores. A lot of runners that would just run all day. And yeah, we're just delighted that we got the win in the end.'
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When Louth opened up a five-point lead did Flood think it was a done deal at that stage and was there a tendency to look at the clock and see time was running out on Antrim?
'I think everyone was looking at the clock at one stage waiting for the hooter to go off,' said the Louth full-forward.
'But we just had to play it right to the final whistle and anything can happen on these days, you could have got a goal there, they were very unlucky not to get a goal in the end but we kept them out.'
Antrim did finished with a flourish, with Louth having to line the goal for a late Antrim free to make sure the ball didn't end up in the back of the net. That would have been a travesty as Louth were the better team over the hour and the last thing they wanted was to be leaving with a draw and then the prospect of a reply.
'No definitely not, but look these are the days you want to play, you want a hard battle,' said Flood.
'You don't want to be coming here and walking all over teams. This will prepare us for next year so we're obviously delighted the goal didn't go in at the end.'
Over a long career, Flood has given enormous and great service to Louth, was this victory up there with some of the previous successes she'd enjoyed with this team?
'Yeah definitely,' she replied.
'It's been a long 15 years but I wouldn't change anything for the world. I'm really proud to be part of the county set-up and I can't wait to be supporting the girls next year and I hope they all give their all…they're a special bunch.'