Louth-Meath love-in, and MJ’s back – or is he?

Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick insists there will be no scenes of GAA hooliganism at Breffni Park on Saturday night, while one of these statements is true: (a) MJ Tierney is back in the Laois side; (b) Justin McNulty is a liar.

The New Firm of Meath and Louth will take to the field in the cauldr… You get the picture. It might not be Ibrox or the Ali Sami Yen, and there will be no problem getting tickets for Saturday night’s game in Cavan, but the temperature is sure to rise at Breffni with every disputed decision.

Following events at the end of the Leinster final last year, when referee Martin Sludden was, shall we say, gently jostled by a couple of Louth supporters, there’s been talk that the hard chalks of Dundalk and Drogheda will turn out in force to stick it to the cow-milking farmers of Summerhill and Oldcastle, and anyone else who gets in their way, this weekend.

However, Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick, who we actually quite liked until he joined the great unwashed in Dáil Eireann, reckons there’ll be no trouble.

“Louth and Meath fans have always got on well,” he lied. “If you go back through the years, there has always been a healthy rivalry.”

“Last year is done and dusted,” Fitzpatrick added.

“It is not about last year now,” he said again, not really convincing anybody.

Meanwhile, everyone’s favourite fancy free-taker MJ Tierney has been restored to the Laois side for the All-Ireland football qualifier against Tipperary.

Except no-one’s very sure whether he’ll actually take his place at O’Moore Park, Portlaoise on Saturday night.

Tierney had been included for the Leinster quarter-final against Dublin last time out but ended up kicking his heels on the bench throughout.

If there’s any consolation for the Parnells man, it’s that such was the dismal nature of the Laois performance that his stock probably rose during his 70 minutes of inactivity.

After the fall-out from that game, it would be a particularly merciless act for manager Justin McNulty to name him and bench him for the second game in a row.

But MJ better beware: anyone who watched McNulty during his playing days with Armagh will know that merciless is sometimes his finest trait.