Belief the key to Laois breakthrough

IT’S easy forget now but two decades ago, long before Clare, Wexford and Limerick were dragging the romance back into hurling, Laois and Offaly were jostling to make a similar breakthrough.

Laois had a team to savour with men like Pat Critchley and John Taylor bringing them to the cusp of provincial success. That they never did so was due to their rivals across the border who provided the breakthrough blueprint for the 1990s golden era.

Laois were good, but Offaly were better. Current Laois manager Páidi Butler said the Faithful side of that era pushed Laois hurling back 20 years. Few could disagree.

If ever the O’Moore men had a chance of revenge though it’s tonight. Offaly hurling hasn’t been so low for a quarter of a century. There’s no Brian Whelahan or Rory Hanniffy and they were relegated to NHL Division Two last month, when Laois came back from the dead in Birr to beat them for the first time in almost 20 years.

“People might say we’ve given Offaly extra incentive for the game after relegating them, but you can’t look at it like that,” said corner-forward Damien Culleton.

“The win wasn’t a massive thing for us that day, it was the manner of it.

“We’d hit a lot of wides in the first 10-15 minutes and we trailed all the way until the brawl that broke out after that.

“That seemed to wake us up and then we nicked it at the very end. That was real Offaly style. Down the years we’ve lost like that but that was a taste of their own medicine.

“It’s given us the belief to say we can beat them. It’ll be a big ask, it’s Offaly in Tullamore and it’s 32 years since we’ve beaten them in the championship. What we know now is we’re capable of beating them. If there’s four or five points in it with 10 minutes to go we’d fancy ourselves.”

Belief, you sense, is what will win or lose this game for Laois.

The closest Culleton has come to a Leinster final was in 2001 when they went down to Wexford by seven points in the semi-final.

Self-confidence was the key that day too, but for all the wrong reasons.

“We lost by seven points but the wides we hit were just unbelievable. There was no belief we could do it in the dressing room beforehand.

“It’s different now. Páidi is a great motivator and just look back to Kilkenny this year [in the League]. They scored a goal after 14 seconds and we were seven points down after 10 minutes. If that was another year, Laois would have folded but we knuckled down and almost won it.

“As things are, we have to believe there is a Leinster final there for us but the thing is, it’s there for Offaly and Dublin too, with Kilkenny on the other side of the draw.”

Belief. A small word but likely to be a big factor again this evening.