Laois on a hiding to nothing after punishing schedule

For the last 12 months there has been a welcome change in the narrative around Laois hurling.

For far too long the county was making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Club scuffles, county hammerings, suspensions. Agreeing on a nadir was an exercise in short-termism: another and worse moment was never too far away.

The best moments this last five or ten years more often than not have come with a local man at the helm. Niall Rigney was on the bridge when only a late Limerick recovery stood between them and an unlikely place in an All-Ireland quarter-final.