Focus on the football, insists Fitzpatrick

WHAT with all the off-field ructions in the midlands lately, no-one could be chastised for forgetting the fact that there is actually football to be played before the Christmas lull.

Laois and Offaly have been the unwitting centres of attention for the past two months now, filling the sports pages with tales of strikes, resignations, rumoured abdications and mysterious disappearances.

Add in the ongoing manager saga in Carlow and what you have is the best Irish rural soap opera since Glenroe shut up shop.