Emerson back to haunt the Dubs
Laois had thrown away a commanding lead in the drawn game at Croke Park in 1999 and, by half-time of the replay, they were down to 14 men and shipping water in all directions until Emerson was switched to full-forward.
The resulting comeback fell two points short but not before the then 26-year-old had battered and bruised the Dublin rearguard into near submission. They’ll remember him well on Hill 16, as will the likes of Johnny Magee, who made his championship debut for Dublin that day.
“Thrilled to get back. I thought I’d never see the day again,” he admitted with a beaming grin. “It’s such a good management team behind us now and we’ll be relishing the thought of playing Dublin in a full Croke Park. Can’t wait.”
It was the dismissal of a previous management team in Laois three years ago that seemed to summon the premature ending to Emerson’s inter-county career at the age of 27 when Tom Cribbin paid the ultimate price for a truly awful listless defeat to Westmeath in the championship.
Emerson walked in disgust some months later, saying Cribbin, who he described as “the only man I’ve ever respected in football”, was made scapegoat for the loss when it was the players that needed to take a long hard look at themselves.
Emerson may have left the grind of the inter-county game behind him to concentrate on his career with the ESB and his young family, but the itch to be involved never healed and when Mick O’Dwyer came knocking on his door late last year, the new man at the helm found a player only too eager to be seduced by his soft Kerry lilt.
“The man in charge was my main reason for coming back,” Emerson admits. “It was all indecision before I eventually did decide to give it another go. It takes huge commitment. It takes so many ingredients to be an inter-county footballer. The timing has to be ok, the money you earn has to be alright before you can sacrifice going and it’s a real single man’s game.
“I have a young child and I’m getting married next year but I have such a great back room team behind me, from my girlfriend to my family, that I’ve been able to come back. Any man on the street who thinks they know the ground an inter-county footballer has to cover is kidding himself. It’s a long, long slog,” he added.
On the field less than a minute in the Offaly replay, he got a vital touch to help set up Brian ‘Beano’ McDonald’s crucial second goal and, for the rest of the 25 minutes, he showed some of the talent and raw strength last seen at it’s zenith in the two games against Dublin in 1999.
“Like I said, I’ve trained hard all year and I’d consider myself unlucky not to have been on the first 15, but I knew that at some stage I’d have some sort of a contribution to give to the team and, lucky enough, I had the chance and it worked out well for me,” he said.
“It was a fantastic result for us to beat Offaly. It doesn’t matter how Offaly were doing the last few years, there’s always a huge rivalry between the two of us which I know well from living on the border there in Portarlington. We train in Portarlington and Offaly train in Portarlington and I know only too well how hard those lads are to beat.”
Laois’ win was all the more pleasurable for Emerson and company after the criticism they received from all and sundry after the drawn encounter with Offaly and the no-show in the league final against Tyrone. “We got a lot of flak in the papers and from yer man Spillane,” Emerson admitted. “It was a bit of a grilling really and it got to us because we thought it was a little bit unfair. We’d done well in the league and we’d sacrificed a lot of good hard training to keep fresh in the league. That kind of told in the league final when we just weren’t sharp.
“It told at the end but we’ve got a few more weeks training in since and every week we’ve improved. Having another two weeks before the Dublin match will only do us even more good.”
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