Louth are my second-favourite team right now.  

How could it be any other way? Kerry, Dublin and – yes – Mayo are well used to being in All-Ireland semi-finals but a span of 69 years, almost at the edge of living memory, separates the Wee County from when they last got this far down the road.

The whole country is delighted for them and everyone, bar all of us in the Mayo camp, will be rooting for them on Saturday week.

But it’s not just their status as outsiders, gatecrashing the hallowed halls of the championship’s final four, that makes Louth a team who are impossible not to like. For me, it was their performance against Monaghan in last weekend’s All-Ireland quarter-final that elevated them to an outfit to be greatly admired and respected.

When Seán Callaghan saw red so early in the game, the script of plucky losers was all but written for Gavin Devlin’s team.

Under the revised playing rules it has become almost a law of iron that playing with fourteen is fatal. Having to do so in the cauldron of Croke Park for virtually the whole game makes it doubly so.

But Louth were having none of it.

What was so impressive about them was how they grew in strength as the finishing line approached. They ran the bench to great effect, with the replacements contributing six points to their scoring tally, and it was the Farney lads who looked a man short as the red tide swept them away coming down the stretch.

But it was the post-match comments by their young centre-back Dara McDonnell that really struck home.

He recounted that the team were reminded in advance of the game that the last Louth side to make it to an All-Ireland semi-final was the one led by Dermot O’Brien in 1957 that went on to capture the Sam Maguire that September.

The current team’s response was: why not us?

As a standard for any team to rally around, it’s a good one. It isn’t, of course, a rallying call only being heard around Ardee and its environs at the moment. Mauricio Pochettino is employing the same call in his role as manager of the US soccer team at the World Cup.

“Why not US?” doesn’t have the same ring to it, though, and not only because the good people of Louth aren’t giving the world the same kind of geopolitical indigestion as the superpower across the Atlantic has been doing in recent times.

But what the Argentine native has shown, however, is that inspirational slogans don’t have to be newly-minted to be effective. Neither are they uniquely attached to any single cause.

Many moons ago, I recall being at a day-long corporate strategy event, which was hard ploughing for the most part, but the breezy facilitator made a point that lodged in my memory, which was that companies seeking inspiration don’t have to be original when embarking on a change of direction or new product launch.

“Steal with pride!” our cheery co-ordinator exhorted.

So, in that spirit, I propose we adopt the battle cry of the Wee County as we face into what will be our tenth All-Ireland semi-final appearance since 2011.

I know Andy Moran has said that this is a three-year project and that we’re only in the first season.

But I know too that this line was rolled out by Andy in the aftermath of that chastening loss to Roscommon two months ago and that, while the Rossies’ involvement in this year’s championship is now well over, we’re still standing, just one of four teams left in the hunt for Sam.

Why not us?

Louth will head into the semi-final as everyone’s adopted county. They’ll still be my second-favourite team on Saturday week, by the way, but second-favourite has to take its place in the queue behind the one that will always be at the front of the line. It’s nothing personal, lads, this is strictly business.

The pundits are already leaning towards them, getting on board with what is, in truth, an uplifting fairytale journey. But we’re on our own journey, one that has already taken us further than we thought it might this year.

Why not us?

Even if we manage to make it back to the final, we all know what a ghastly record we have when we get that far. We’re not even thinking about a possible final appearance yet – truly, we’re not – and, if we are fortunate enough to get to play in that game where possession of the Sam Maguire is the prize on offer, we know we’ll be rank outsiders.

We know all that. But the beauty – some might say the curse – of following a team is that it gives its supporters the chance to dream. We’ve had those dreams and those hopes of glory blown to oblivion more times than we can remember.

What are we like? Here we are again, dreaming those same old dreams, hoping once again that we’ll earn a tilt at glory, another shot at immortality.  

Why not us?