Kearns: Time for a new era

Laois manager Liams Kearns believes that it is time to move on from the Mick O'Dwyer era in Laois and to focus on the future as he puts in the final preparations for Sunday's Leinster SFC final against Dublin.

Kearns has the height of respect for the legendary O'Dwyer, who guided Leinster to the 2003 Leinster title, and believes that although he will never match him in terms of honours gained from the game, the former Limerick boss is hopeful that success will come Laois' way this weekend.

"Mick O'Dwyer has forgotten more than I will ever know about the game and the reality is that he is a legend and I will never be a legend in the game. There are just no comparisons between us and I wouldn't even try and start to compare," Kearns said.

"I'm doing it my own way and he did it his way which was tried and trusted and his results speak for themselves. He is the most decorated manager ever in the GAA and as I say I'm a long way from that and I will never be near that pitch so there's no point in comparisons.

"I'm doing it my way and we'll do our best and hopefully my way won't be too bad."

Kearns, who works as a Garda, believes that there has been too much talk in the past of winning All-Irelands in Laois and that the current O'Moore county side needs to take each game as it comes and build on their good recent form at provincial level.

"The furthest Laois have got is an All-Ireland quarter-final and that isn't enough when you consider yourself challenging for All-Ireland titles. In fairness at Leinster level, this is Laois' fourth final out of five and they have won one.

"They are regularly challenging at provincial level but if you want to be talking about All-Irelands then you have to regularly challenge and that means semi-finals and finals and winning them.

"Until you are doing that there is no point talking about it," Kearns added.

The Laois supremo believes that there is a low level of expectation in the county at present about the team's chances, but that this can only benefit the players.

"I think the air of expectancy is low. The reality is (that based) on our form, anything that we have produced so far won't win us a Leinster championship - that's the reality.

"I would say that most of the Laois supporters realise that we are up against it and that is the reality based on form alone, that's not tongue in cheek.

"We realise that anything we have done so far is not going to be good enough and if we don't get a better performance that we have gotten so far then we won't be winning a Leinster title on Sunday," he conceded.

"The bottom line for us is that we have confidence in what we are about and we won't be going up to Croke Park to make up the numbers. We hope to pose serious questions for Dublin on the day."

Much has been made about Laois' sluggish starts in the championship to date. In contrast, Dublin have tended to start rapidly in their games and Kearns is certainly mindful of this.

"It would be looked on as a strength of Dublin's and a weakness of ours because we have played two championship matches and had two very, very poor starts and there is no point in saying otherwise," he admitted.

"Certainly we would hope to start better than in the two games we have had so far. I'm on record as saying that we won't get away with it for a third time and I would be fairly sure that that would be the case.

"If we start as poorly as we have done in the last couple of matches then I think Dublin will make their usual start and they are too experienced to let you back into it so that's the reality of it."

Kearns is also concerned about the physical threat which Dublin will pose in Sunday's sold-out decider.

"They are a very physical team but there is no point in fearing it. When you are meeting a physical team, they have their strengths and we have ours and they have weaknesses and we have weaknesses.

"At the end of the day, you have got to size them up and see where you can put it up to them. If you go in with fear you may as well not be going in.

"Fear is certainly not a word I would use in relation to a game of football and the reality is that, as I say, if you are going to go in with fear you are not going to perform. If you are not going to perform then you are not going to do it," he said.