Edging closer to football’s top table

THE players’ lounge underneath Croke Park’s Hogan Stand has been open for business for five years now and rarely will two sets of players have had as much to talk about as those from Laois and Donegal after tomorrow’s match.

The Division Two final will be their second meeting in the space of a fortnight but it is the copious links and similarities between the two counties these past 10 years that should ensure a never-ending source of conversation.

Back in 2003, both looked to be on the cusp of greatness. Laois had won a first Leinster senior title in 57 years under Mick O’Dwyer while their Ulster colleagues stretched their summer all the way to an All-Ireland semi-final.

By the end of the decade, such glories appeared to be mere mirages. Last year, Laois were chaperoned out of the back door by Tipperary while Armagh hammered Donegal in Crossmaglen.

Neither exit created many waves.

Both had failed to fulfil the potential that was abundant in the seasons between, although the mind can still recall Christy Toye flicking a ball off the ground into his hands at full pelt and Colm Parkinson teasing defenders with keepy-uppies.

Such cockiness would have been all well and good had silverware followed in its wake but it didn’t. Instead, both counties found themselves saddled with intermittent stories of player indiscipline and summer after lost summer passed both of them by.

And so to tomorrow when both counties, buoyed by the influence of a young and ambitious manager, will hope to frank recent progress with a rare national title.

“They have had a lot of hard knocks down though the years,” said Laois manager Justin McNulty, who could just as easily have been speaking for the players his men will face at HQ in what will be the curtain-raiser to Dublin-Cork.

“No more so than last year when they were very disappointed with results, losing a replay to Meath and then losing out in the back door to Tipperary. They are hurting and if they were not hurting, there would be something wrong.”

McNulty dismissed any query regarding past infractions on his charges’ parts and, as an outsider with no past experience of football in the county, he is entitled to. His counterpart has no such escape hatch.

Jim McGuinness was a faithful servant to Donegal in his playing days but, like McNulty, he has nothing but praise for the work ethic and dedication to the straight and narrow which his panel have evinced so far in his rookie term.

“We try to have a group that’s honest with each other and we try to give them as much as we possibly can to help them develop as players, whether that’s nutrition or helping them out to try and secure jobs or their training,” said McGuinness.

“Whatever it is, we try to work with them and get the most out of them. If there’s an honesty in the group and everybody’s pulling in the one direction, that will transfer itself on to the field of play and they’ve been very honest.”

McGuinness and McNulty appear well qualified for the tasks awaiting them. For a start, both have a background in psychology which, given past failures and disappointments in the north-west and midlands, is no harm.

McGuinness has already proven his managerial chops by taking the Donegal U21s to within a whisker of an All-Ireland title last year while the emergence of McNulty as officer material is no surprise to anyone who remembers him from his days with Armagh.

Kieran McGeeney’s successes with Kildare have provided a useful template for the former defender — and maybe even a rod for his back down the line — but his recollections of what made that Armagh team so successful are enlightening.

“A lot of people would say that maybe we were too focused,” he said of a side that won renown for its mental toughness as much as its All-Ireland title and collection of Anglo-Celt Cups.

“Probably a lot of relationships fell along the wayside along the way.”

Hard to think, after so many years spent witnessing false dawns, that anyone in Laois or Donegal would baulk at the thought of sacrificing a few friendships if it meant a similar bounty falling their way.