No one is more excited about the start of the Leinster football championship this weekend than the players from Louth. No team suffered more from the foot-and-mouth outbreak, no county has had to endure such a long spell off the field.

"Right now they are just like a dancer who wants to dance," says their manager Paddy Clarke, "or like a piano player who needs to perform. Those who play football in any county will be remembered there in 30 years' time by what they did on the field, and so they all want to get on with their playing careers."

Louth last lined out as an intercounty team 10 weeks ago. Their National League programme was suddenly derailed, club competitions were almost completely restricted, and county training was fragmented. Now they are just days away from the championship and their Leinster preliminary round tie against Longford in Navan on Sunday.

The only thing to do now, says Clarke, is get on with it: "Of course our preparations have been hit but we've done our best to keep it to the minimum. If it starts to get to the players then they will start to use it as an excuse.

"It would help if everyone was coming off the same boat but the disease did hit our county and that was unfortunate. You just have to accept it."

Part of the problem was that 14 clubs were inside the exclusion zone, prohibiting the opportunity of club competition for most of the panel. Players ended up training on their own but even that had its problems.

"Fortunately they are a mature bunch of players. We've recycled a lot of players over the last number of years and a lot of them have lost the flippancy of youth. But there were a few cases where players were forced to do some things on their own and that caused a few injuries."

There is at least one bonus about this year's championship. The introduction of a losers' group is "perfectly timed" for Louth's ambitions, guaranteeing them another game no matter what happens on Sunday. Opponents Longford go into the game off the back of an excellent league series, setting a hard-fought game. They just missed out on promotion on points difference after losing their final game to Kildare.

Louth's league future still hangs in the balance. The Central Council of the GAA decided at the weekend not to allow them fulfil their remaining fixtures against Dublin and Tyrone and instead they must go into a play-off with Donegal to decide who makes the drop from Division One with Kerry.

"There is a feeling among the county board and the supporters that we were hard done by. We don't even know when we play that game but the word now is that it will be sometime after the championship. And of course everyone is tuned into the championship now. It's just great to get back playing and we won't worry about that league game until it comes."

Clarke does find it a little cruel that their league became such a disaster the very year they entered the top division in such high spirits. Exactly a year ago Louth were Division Two champions and the future looked rosy. Now they are back at the bottom of the ladder and excited just to climb the rung.

And they may get that chance to play Dublin soon enough. The winners on Sunday go through to meet the Dublin on May 27th in Croke Park, and by then the league will be a distant memory.