Micko: ‘Surely to God, there’s more fire and spirit left in ye’

LAOIS travelled to Croke Park yesterday with a lot of people wondering about their ability to match last year’s heroics, their own supporters included. By half-time, the same questions were being asked yet again.

What a difference 35 minutes can make. Their swagger returned in that second period against Meath, even if most will reserve judgment on Mick O’Dwyer’s side until they stretch their legs beyond the provincial borders. No matter. They proved their hunger and ability to those that mattered most yesterday. Themselves. “I said to them at half-time, what the hell were we doing in the first half?” O’Dwyer explained. “I said, surely to God, there’s more fire and spirit left in ye. In fairness, they produced it in the second half with some outstanding football.”

Colm Parkinson was one of the few who can look back on the entire 70 minutes with a glowing satisfaction, but, good as he was on the day, he was never going to win the game on his own.

“They were mopping up every single break that was going in the first half and they were just diving in on balls,” Parkinson admitted. “They seemed to be the hungrier team but from the start of the second half we just dominated. I thought the ball coming in [to the forwards] was just perfect. It was right in front of us, bouncing into us and we couldn’t have asked for better.”

If this was anyone’s afternoon, in fact, it was the Portlaoise man. Who could begrudge him it either after spending the guts of last summer nursing a succession of injuries and watching history unfold from the subs bench.

“I’m fairly driven this year,” he said. “I missed out on most of last year with injuries so I’m pretty determined. I was a complete outsider all last year, just looking in on everything. I’m determined to do a bit better this year.”

‘Better’ wasn’t the word for it. Pitched in at the unfamiliar position of full-forward to take on the imposing Darren Fay may have been a task beyond another man.

“One of the reasons why the lads stuck me in there was because I gave him a lot of trouble in Navan in that league game a few years ago. I don’t think I scored off him, but I was breaking ball in front of him like today.”

Parkinson certainly left his mark on the Meath defence, but the gesture was returned towards the end when John Cullinane repaid the Laois forward for goading his opponents with a spot of keepy-uppy on the sideline.

“I got a kick in the face near the end, but I kind of drove them to it, I suppose, tapping it on my foot,” he laughed. “I just wanted to play for a free because I knew it was nearly over, but I didn’t expect four of them to hop off me like that. I was covering my face with my hands, so it wasn’t too bad, but he definitely kicked me in the face as he walked by, whoever he was.”

Ross Munnelly may have picked off five points as well, but performances like that are old hat where this precocious youngster is concerned.

Still, nice to lay that 12-year old Meath bogey to rest, all the same. “That was a very tough game. We knew that it was going to be hell for leather. We thought this was going to be our toughest match of the last two years, actually, because they were the last of the teams we had to beat in Leinster, who had always put it up to us,” the Arles-Kilcruise forward said.

“People were starting to knock us again. The game that was in it against Carlow, a tight pitch in Dr Cullen, we knew that five points was a great victory there because all the teams around the country are improving.”