Now for Laois say Carlow who aim to prove Longford win not a flash in pan

CARLOW are refusing to rest on their laurels after Sunday’s surprise win over Longford and are preparing for their meeting with Leinster champions Laois at Dr Cullen Park in three weeks’ time.

Corner-forward Simon Rea is adamant that the weekend victory wouldn’t be a flash in the pan.

“Overall, we’re absolutely thrilled with this victory. It means so much to us,” said Rea, who scored 2-3 of his side’s total in Tullamore.

“But we’ll still give Laois a good game in three weeks’ time. We can’t get carried away. We have to keep our feet on the ground and get back at it.

“We’re back training on Tuesday night at Dr Cullen and we’ll be doing the same as we have been for the last three weeks.”

The Éire Óg man is convinced that they will rattle Mick O’Dwyer’s high flyers. “I honestly believe we can put it up to Laois. I do. Laois were the surprise team last year and maybe we can be the surprise team this year.

“The element of surprise catches a lot of teams. Longford are a Division One side even though they got relegated. They beat Kerry at the start of the year and they have some class players like Paul Barden, Niall Sheridan and Pádraic Davis.”

Carlow’s victory was all the more remarkable given the fall-out from manager Mickser Condon’s acrimonious exit. Now they’re a panel reborn under the tutelage of former Carlow player Luke Dempsey.

“Since Luke came in the attitude in the camp has been unreal,” Rea explained. “We were after playing two good challenge matches against Wexford and Leitrim and we knew within ourselves we had this in us. Our results earlier in the year showed that. We beat Dublin in the O’Byrne Cup and ran Offaly very close in the league and beat Monaghan.

“After the Offaly game things went astray and then we had the Donegal incident. That’s all behind us now and we all believed in each other. Luke has instilled belief in everyone and we believe we’re capable of beating anyone on our day. That showed against Longford.”

If Rea’s two late goals put the gloss on the occasion, it was the period either side of the break that told the true story of this side’s mettle.

“We felt hard done by coming up to half-time when Thomas Walsh kicked a point and it wasn’t given. I suppose the referee has to go along with his umpires. Then they went down the field, and scored a point and that’s a two-point swing,” he said.

“We came into the dressing room and talked about it and decided we wouldn’t let it upset us. Then we came out and they got a point to go ahead for the first time and we got four unanswered points. That was crucially important. That settled us down. After that we knew we wouldn’t fall away.”

Carlow County Board have rubbished suggestions that their meeting with Laois will be moved from Dr Cullen Park. “We are capable of coping with the game no matter what. Last year’s All-Ireland minor football final championship replay involving Laois and Dublin attracted 19,000 to Dr Cullen Park and it created no problem. We are looking at a crowd of 12,000 so there will be no problem.”