Laois can see some northern light

Laois 1-11 Derry 0-11

Against Offaly and Dublin they juggled the mundane with the magnificent. They were at it again on Saturday, handing Derry a five-point cushion in the first half before reeling them in, falling adrift before finally leaving them for dead in the last quarter of a fitful yet entertaining game.

Infuriating? Definitely. Entertaining? You better believe it.

How they manage to touch both ends of such a wide spectrum is a mystery even to themselves, but it’s a puzzle they admit needs unlocking with Armagh just over the horizon.

“I think it’s just down to the players themselves because the management can’t do anything about it,” said Stephen Kelly, whose introduction was a catalyst in changing their fortunes after the interval.

“We’re going to have to get stuck in more. When you’re under pressure like we were in the first-half it’s so important to kick the odd point or get in the odd tackle, which we don’t seem able to do. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s a failing of the team that we all tend to stand back and look for someone else to do it. But that will have to change.”

Though their concentration can waver, the same can’t be said for the team’s character. Four points down at the interval, their All-Ireland quarter-final hopes were draining away with every passing minute of the second half where they failed to score.

In the end, it took them eight to find the target with the metronomic Billy Sheehan bursting a gut to paw Noel Garvan’s hand pass into the net. From there they managed to establish a one-point lead, lose it again and then wrestle it back before streaking away to a three-point win.

Yet even in victory, it wasn’t necessary to dig too deep for the negatives. A possible 2-12 was kicked away carelessly, three of their starting forwards were called ashore after a bad day at the office and Ross Munnelly had a miserable day on free taking duty.

Such lapses won’t be redeemable in two weeks time.

What mattered most though was the result because this was the game on which this Laois team and Mick O’Dwyer’s reign over it would ultimately stand or fall, something Kelly himself readily admitted.

“Had we lost you might have seen this team disbanding. You wouldn’t know what Micko would do. It might have fallen away.”

Brush aside all the plaudits about Laois’ fluent style of play and their well-oiled underage talent-line and the bald facts state that they have only one Leinster title in the cupboard to show for their efforts.

Two years ago, Armagh softened their cough in the last eight. A win over Joe Kernan’s side would take Laois into the virgin territory of an All-Ireland semi-final.

Derry provided the perfect dry run for another tilt at the Ulster champions for a Laois outfit who had lost all three of their previous Croke Park encounters under O’Dwyer to northern opposition.

“I think this extra game will bring us on no end,” said goalkeeper Fergal Byron. “We’ve got a game against a northern side and maybe that little bit of a hoodoo that we can’t beat northern sides in Croke Park is gone out of our minds now.

“Everyone else was saying Laois got the toughest draw but we were happy enough to be playing Derry. We knew that if we were going to do anything this year we’d have to play the likes of Derry and that’s ideal preparation for the Armagh game.”

More encouragement can be found in the fact that Joe Kernan’s side tend to bring out the best in them, or close to it anyway. Back in 2002, the Leinster county was the only team to inflict a defeat on Armagh in a Division Two league semi-final.

They repeated that dose in the Division One equivalent 12 months later before ending up two points worse off in the All-Ireland series three months later. It’s worth mentioning too that Armagh were at their pomp at the time whereas such dizzying heights were all new to Laois.

“It was our first year under Micko as well and maybe we lacked a bit of experience at that stage. This team needs big tests now, we need to see where we are. If we’re in touch at half-time, I don’t care if it’s Armagh, Kerry, Cork or Galway in Croke Park, I’ll be in a good frame of mind and happy enough that we can do something in the second-half.”

LAOIS: F Byron; A Fennelly, D Rooney, J Higgins; C Begley, T Kelly (0-1), P McMahon; P Clancy (0-1), N Garvan ()-1); R Munnelly (0-5, 1f) ,K Fitzpatrick, B Sheehan (1-1); D Brennan (0-1), S Cooke, C Conway.

Subs: G Kavanagh (0-1) for Cooke 26, B McDonald for Conway 35, S Kelly (0-1) for Fitzpatrick 35, M Dunne for Donie Brennan 73.

DERRY: B Gillis; K McGuckin, K McCloy, G O’Kane; F McEldowney, SM Lockhart, P Kelly (0-1); Patsy Bradley, F Doherty; Paul Murphy (0-2), E Bradley (0-1), J McBride (0-1); M Lynch (0-1), Paddy Bradley (0-4, 1f), E Muldoon (0-1f).

Subs: C Gilligan for Paul Murphy 52, Pauric Murphy for Muldoon 61, P Wilson for Pauric Kelly 68, C Devlin for E Bradley 68.

Referee: P Russell (Tipperary).