Of the three Leinster SFC first round ties this Sunday, the meeting of Louth and Wicklow is the match most pundits would feel confident of predicting the outcome of.

Having achieved successive promotions under Colin Kelly, Louth are one of the form teams in the province and are favourites to progress to a quarter-final against Meath.

But Wicklow will be fired up heading to Parnell Park, knowing that they are overdue a first round victory since beating Longford in 2013.

They slipped up with some inconsistent displays in Division 4 earlier and Johnny McGee and his players are aware that they will have to lift their performance to stand a chance of pulling off a shock.

“We were disappointed with the league,” says team captain Stephen Kelly. “We planned to get a good start and that didn’t materialise. But we got back on track, and a few results that we probably should have got slipped away from us. We’ve been playing well in matches, and are focussed on getting a full performance in the first round of the championship.”

Louth defeated Carlow in the first round last season before succumbing to Meath and so would love another crack at their near neighbours.

“The last couple of years have been good to us,” says key defender Padraig Rath. “We were disappointed that we lost heavily to Tipperary in the Division 3 final, but we got what we wanted out of the league; we got promotion which was a goal we set at the start of the season. We wanted to push on and it worked out well for us.”