Beefed-up Laois are also packing a punch

A STRANGER ambling through Laois or Kildare this past two weeks would be forgiven for thinking it was a boxing or wrestling show in the pipeline this week.

Three weeks ago, Kildare ended Westmeath’s reign as provincial champions with a degree of physicality - perfectly legal, it must be said - that has depicted them as the tough guys in the eyes of some Laois supporters.

Those fears are grounded in their own perceived shortcomings as much as Kildare’s beef. In the All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh two years ago, the Ulster boys were almost to a man taller than Laois and twice as wide with it, but, this year, Mick O’Dwyer sought to remedy that by digging out the number of John Doran. An army officer and Kildare native based in the Curragh, Doran had drilled O’Dwyer’s Kildare through the odyssey of 1998 before pitching tent down the road with Tom Cribbins in Laois for the next two years.

Standing well clear of six-foot and with an upper body that looks like granite, it’s clear Fergal Byron isn’t one of those wispy Laois players Doran was summoned to fill out. He lives on the Laois-Kildare border in Ballybrittas, and with a mother from ‘the other side’, he has heard the talk, the fears that Kildare will brush Laois away like an irritating fly.

He counters by pointing to the serious effort they’ve put in with weights training during the winter. “The lads might not be a whole lot bigger - you can’t make big men out of small men - but they’re definitely stronger in the tackle. They can take harder belts than they took two years ago.

“It’s not the tough, hard belts that you’re worried about, it’s the cynical fouling, the knees in on the ground when the man goes down. In that situation you’re looking to the referee to be vigilant and most of them are.

“We’ll be out to play football as we always are. There’s no point trying to change our colours now. We are a good footballing side when we get the space to play.”

Mindful of Kildare’s hunger at the breakdown and his own side’s struggles at midfield, O’Dwyer has replaced the pint-sized Donie Brennan and the rakish Gary Kavanagh with meatier men like Barry Brennan and Billy Sheehan for Sunday. Byron can see the logic, but he reminds you the game is called ‘football’ for a reason. He finds himself sitting down to the Sunday Game, nodding in agreement as the armchair experts regurgitate the call for more emphasis on ball work in training.

Eight years into his career, it’s not surprising to learn that the Leinster final win over Kildare two years ago takes pride of place in the memory bank, but ask him his memories of the day itself and it isn’t receiving the medal, the pitch invasion or the raucous night afterwards that he talks of.

“Apart from the harsh sendings-off, people remember the football played in that game. It’ll probably be remembered as one of the best games of the decade, and that’s saying something with five years of it still to come.”

The verve that Laois displayed so effortlessly in 2003 has been more elusive this past two seasons. Having cantered to an O’Byrne Cup title in January with a scratch selection, they followed it up with two opening league wins of an equally high calibre and all seemed sweet. But in the third round, despite playing Armagh off the park and stockpiling 17 points, they still ended up with a two-point defeat. “Hopefully as the championship progresses the team will gel. We didn’t have the Portlaoise lads back until near the end of the league. The league is about building a team for the championship and we couldn’t do that.”

It all adds up to an air of, if not pessimism, then wariness that has been absent in Laois for any other Leinster Championship match in O’Dwyer’s time. Yet, for all the consternation over their stutters against Offaly, there was much to admire; a defence that didn’t receive due credit for Offaly’s 19 wides and a heart big enough to reel in a six-point deficit in 35 minutes.

“Micko’s injected that bit of inner self-belief to stay going even if you are behind. Six points behind at half-time is a fair deficit in championship football. It takes a lot to get that back but we don’t want to put ourselves in that position again. If we play like we did in the first-half against Offaly, Kildare will be out of sight at half-time.”

What tomorrow boils down to for Byron is the biggest game Laois have played yet under O’Dwyer. Last year’s loss to Westmeath denied them the opportunity to begin a mini-dynasty in Leinster. Lose out this year and the aura of a team being talked up as All-Ireland dark horses last year will slip significantly further.

The title win two years ago was fantastic, he says, “because nobody really expected too much of us. Last year, we lost a Leinster final but now people are looking to see how we react to that. People are wondering how good we actually are, so it’s time to stand up and be counted.”

Laois v Kildare, Croke Park, 2.15pm

Boylesport betting: Home 5/6 Draw 15/2 Away 6/5

LAOIS: F Byron; A Fennelly, D Rooney, J Higgins; C Begley, T Kelly, P McMahon; P Clancy, N Garvan; R Munnelly, B Brennan, B Sheehan; C Conway, K Fitzpatrick, B McDonald.

KILDARE: E Murphy, J Lonergan, A Rainbow, A Mc Loughlin, M Wright, G Ryan, K Ennis, K Brennan, M Foley, D McCormack, D Earley, R Sweeney, T Fennin, R Glavin, John Doyle

Referee: (J Geaney, Cork).