The tough task making it in the midlands

Earlier this decade Laois and Westmeath were basking in the glories of underage and Leinster SFC title successes. So why has their stock fallen so quickly? Brendan O’Brien reports.

IT started with a penalty. Westmeath were three points up in the 1995 Leinster MFC final when Laois star Ian Fitzgerald, showing enviable composure for a 17-year old, slotted the equalising goal under Aidan Lennon at a packed Croke Park.

In all, it took three games and 210 minutes of football to separate the two that summer. It wasn’t quite 1991 and Dublin-Meath all over again but it did take on a life of its own. The first of two replays in Tullamore was delayed by 15 minutes to accommodate the crowd of 8,000.

Their meetings were few and far between thereafter but they continued to leave similar footprints in their journeys from midland obscurity to national prominence and the duo were locked in another death match nine years later. Westmeath again came out the better of it, relieving Laois of their senior provincial title. Here too, it took more than one afternoon to separate the sides.

“Laois and Westmeath went step by step for years,” says former Westmeath chairman Seamus Whelan whose tenure spanned both epic encounters.

“I still remember (Kevin) Fitzpatrick shooting for goal in the last minute in the 2004 Leinster final. I can still see it. It shaved the wrong side of the post. That’s how close it was. It was always like that with Laois and Westmeath.”

That parallel rise in fortunes was no accident. Both counties launched ambitious underage programmes in the late 80s and early 90s and the 1995 meeting was merely the first dance in which the pair would partake on the bigger stages. They proved loath to leave the floor.

Laois would be the first to make the breakthrough at senior level with a Leinster title in 2003 but Westmeath adapted quicker to the pace in the early days. They followed their defeat of Laois in ‘95 with a first All-Ireland minor title and added the U21 equivalent in 1999. Luke Dempsey was the string that tied the bands together.

Laois’s bounty was even greater, more sustained. Back-to-back minor All-Irelands came in ‘96 and ‘97 and Beano McDonald almost made history by claiming a hat-trick the following year. They never claimed national bragging rights at U21 but they squirreled away countless Leinster titles at both grades.

Times have changed now, though, and not for the better.

The counties still find themselves treading similar paths 14 years on from that first memorable meeting at Croke Park but the roads are more treacherous these days. Laois face Louth in a quarter-final at Parnell Park tomorrow, two hours after Westmeath meet Wicklow in Tullamore. Both should win but a shock in either fixture wouldn’t rock the world off its axis either.

Navigate tomorrow’s waters and the expectation is that Westmeath will fall foul of Dublin in one semi-final while Kildare will account for Laois in the other. Proponents of differing opinions are hard to find, even within their own county boundaries.

Of the two, Laois’s gradual demise is the more mystifying. It is only six years since they won their last minor All-Ireland, two since their U21s somehow let an All-Ireland slip through their grasp against Cork in Thurles. The shoots are still green but whether the county will flower again remains to be seen.

Fergal Byron is a man who should know. An All Star goalkeeper with the county when it claimed the Leinster title in 2003, he now writes a column on football for one of the local papers and shows little hesitation in coming to the nub of the problem.

“What strikes me every time I watch Tyrone play is that Tyrone still have about eight or nine on the team that played us in the National League final in 2003 and then won the All-Ireland in the same year. I looked at a picture of the Laois team at home from that year there recently, subs and all. There is only nine of that 32 still on the panel and only three on the team for Sunday. Tyrone have eight or nine from 2003 still on their team alone.

“It’s an unbelievable turnover of players in a relatively short period and a lot of those lads are still very young. Mix that in with the injuries to the likes of Tom Kelly, Joe Higgins and Beano and it adds up.”

Laois may lament a situation where they feel the need to flood young players into the senior team rather than filter them but the conveyor belt is at least operating close to capacity after all these years. For now at least. Provincial minor and U21 titles have eluded Laois for two summers now for the first time since 2002.

Westmeath haven’t claimed an underage provincial title since the start of the century but Whelan isn’t all that surprised. Counties like Westmeath and Laois, with small populations and little tradition of success, will always be mere interlopers rather than residents at the highest level.

“We made a concerted effort to try and improve coaching structures when I became chairman (in 1986) but there is no point in trying the Kerry model because they feel that it is their divine right to win.

“We looked at Down. They had a huge reliance on ex-fellas coaching and it worked very well. We had a lot of success but it is very, very difficult for counties to keep that effort going year after year.

“Westmeath have been disappointing in minor football lately but that is the nature of things. It is hard for counties to maintain those levels for long. Where Westmeath is doing well at the moment is in the hurling.

“I have to give credit to Sean Sheridan and James Savage for the hurling renaissance in the county. There is a minor-revival going on. We defeated Offaly at minor. Incremental improvement I would call it.” Their senior footballers would probably settle for that right now. So too might Laois.