Fitzpatrick boost for Laois

LAOIS’ first defence of their Leinster SFC title on Sunday is boosted by the return of Kevin Fitzpatrick for the meeting with Carlow in Dr Cullen Park.

He damaged a hamstring in training last week but is expected to be available for selection at the weekend.

The Portlaoise player, who played in defence for the past two years, has been drafted into midfield in the wake of Padraic Clancy’s serious thumb injury.

Fitzpatrick has formed an impressive partnership with the improving Noel Garvan in the last few games.

Fitzpatrick can expect a tough assignment according to skipper Chris Conway, whose Arles-Kilcruise club lies just a few miles west of the Carlow border.

Carlow’s defeat of Longford may have caused a few mild tremors after the internal wrangling less than a month before the game, but not in Conway’s neck of the woods where they know their neighbours well.

“I expected them to beat Longford, especially after what happened before Luke Dempsey arrived. Carlow are at their most dangerous when they’re down. I’ve seen it myself over the years,” Conway explained yesterday.

“They have some fine footballers there and some dangerous scoring forwards like Simon Rea and Mark Carpenter. The two older lads, Johnny Nevin and Sean Kavanagh are excellent players too, so we’ll know what they’re about.”

Laois are still without five forwards for Sunday’s tie, Gary Kavanagh (cruciate ligament), Barry Brennan (back), Donal Miller (ankle), Chris Bergin and Colm Kelly (both hamstrings).

This year they’ve had a two-month break since their last league assignment with Wexford. All of which is in contrast to their NFL exploits of the previous two seasons.

“It’s been a change for us, no doubt about it,” said Conway. “It’s the first time in a number of years that we haven’t been involved in a preliminary round or out in early May. People might look at that and say we could be rusty at the start and we know the difference in tempo between our last league match and Sunday will be massive, but we’re prepared for that.

“We’ve trained hard and worked well together and hopefully we’ll be ready to hit the ground running on Sunday.”

It’s a critical summer for Mick O’Dwyer’s side as the bid to repeat or even surpass the heroics of last summer and bid to silence the doubting thomases of 12 months ago.

Conjecture on the past or present doesn’t interest Conway, however.

“I’d say Dublin have found it hardest of all to give us praise, they all always do,” he joked. “People will probably point to the Leinster final against Kildare as well when they had an extra man sent off and say maybe they were hard done by.

“You couldn’t take anything away from what the lads achieved last year though. They definitely played the best football in Leinster and some people even said they were the best pure footballing team in the country last year. That’s why we got three Allstars.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion one way or another but we’ll be concentrating on Carlow.

“All year our focus has been the 30th of May.”