Micko revels in Laois success

THE stunning success of Laois in regaining the Leinster football championship was as personally fulfilling for Mick O’Dwyer as anything he has achieved in football over five decades of involvement.

While it may have surpassed his expectations for the team, he recalled yesterday that he has grown more confident of their ability to realise their potential after the landmark win over Offaly in the Leinster quarter-final replay.

"The years that gave me most satisfaction were the eight or nine years I spent with Kildare. And, in 98, coming through to get to the All-Ireland final was unbelievable for me.

"That's a year I will never forget because we beat Meath, Dublin and Kerry the All-Ireland champions of the previous three years. Unfortunately, injuries caught us in the final.

"With Laois, after seven or eight months, this win would have to stand with anything I have ever done in my life."

Declan O'Loughlin is not so sure, but he suspects O'Dwyer took more than a passing interest in Laois football after watching them play Meath in the Leinster championship last year. The pair are old friends and O'Loughlin a Portlaoise hotelier, who was on that team which last beat Dublin 35 years ago is the one O'Dwyer credits with persuading him to come on board. Predictably, he picked him as one of his selectors and he brought in Gabriel Lalor, the coach to the first winning minor team, as the other.

It wasn't a major surprise that O'Dwyer agreed to come to Laois because in conversation with a journalist last summer, he identified them, along with Tipperary and Westmeath, as a team 'you could do something with'.

But back then there was no talk of him going there. What's more intriguing is that he decided to get involved at inter-county level so soon after leaving Kildare.

O'Dwyer takes up the story: "I was down in Waterville and after about two weeks who arrives down but Declan. He came down by the way to play a round of golf. We had a chat about football and I said I was going to take a rest and get away from it for a while. My intention was to do a little bit with my own club Waterville. A week later he came back again."

O'Loughlin gave him a bit of a sob story, that unless something was done to regenerate Laois football, he doubted if would ever get to the top again.

"After a lot of persuasion I said I'd give it a go, that I'd come up in October and we'd have a look. That's where it started and where it took off from," O'Dwyer states.

Whatever about him twisting Micko's arm, O'Loughlin recalled yesterday that he had been very approachable, commenting: "When he agreed he would train the team my mouth fell open. It was a shock, really. Then I had unbelievable doubts, was I after selling this wrong. The one thing I didn't want to happen was for Micko to come here and for us to play the same type of football and not make progress. But, he got it out of them. He is that sort of a charismatic man."

From the outset, O'Dwyer identified fitness as a priority. His approach was to put the players through a strenuous course of training at the start. That way he knew he would get his men, those who were willing to stick with it. The opening league game, away to Meath in Navan, was another priority. Winning gave them the perfect start and, in a curious way, losing was the perfect finish.

"Up to then, these fellows were on air, they thought they couldn't be beaten. Tyrone gave us a bit of a hammering. It meant that I was able to start working on them again."

From the outset, he identified Pauric Clancy and Noel Garvan, along with Donal Miller (a late substitute on Sunday), as the players to operate at mdifield. After a bit of experimenting, he placed Tom Kelly at centre-back, where he feels he has played super football. And, he chose Ian Fitzgerald as his captain.

"Clancy, Garvan and Fitzgerald showed real fire, as well as class and skill. And, Beano (Brian McDonald) is something else. He got a marvellous goal and made another. Young Ross Munnelly is another cracker. He was not on the panel but I brought him in after seeing him in the Sigerson Cup. They are all players who are willing to work their arse off to win games."

At the outset, he believed that players had been pushed around in the past by previous managements. "Players had lost confidence. That was their biggest problem," he said.

The maturity in the team gives him obvious pleasure, pointing out that they have had to cope with the hype since before the Dublin game.

"Isn't this the right time to be learning about it, in the early rounds of the championship. Locking gates and all that only creates more hype and puts more pressure on them, in my opinion. I'm not into that stuff," he adds.

His aim was to try and win a Leinster title. What happens from now on is a bonus. In the meantime, he feels that the All-Ireland title rests between Armagh, Galway, Tyrone and Kerry with Tyrone his fancy because of the way they have strengthened their midfield.

O'Loughlin describes the whole odyssey as a fairytale for those of them (including his brother Tom, chairman of the Football Board) who brought Micko to Laois, for Micko himself and certainly for the people of the county, at home and around the world.

"It's unbelievable. It has taken away the pain of losing for all past players.

"All last week people were asking how we would do. I'd have to say that for once I took the attitude that we were going up as favourites and that we were going to win it. People warned about being over-confidence and that getting to the players. We were in five Leinster finals since 46. We were the underdog in all of them and we lost the five of them.

"So, when the mantle of favouritism was given to us, I think it actually gave more momentum to the lads."

Clearly it did.