Carlow didn't doubt the Joe McDonagh Cup dream Pat Bennett sold them
Carlow hurling captain Chris Nolan on Pat Bennett: "He just loves the game, absolutely loves it. He's always the first up in the field, any night we're training." Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
When Tom Mullally quit as Carlow manager last November, leaving county officials promising to 'move swiftly' for a quick appointment so late in the year, Pat Bennett didn't need to come to their rescue.
As he said in a remarkable interview just a few weeks ago, 'at my age, I don't have to be doing this. I really don't, I'm retired'.
The Ballysaggart man revealed during that interview that he'd battled prostate cancer in recent years and recalled how, after finishing up as an Antrim selector, he was so exhausted from the long haul gig that he 'collapsed' at home a few weeks later. That's only last summer.
Now put yourself in the shoes of Chris Nolan, the Carlow captain, and consider just how inspiring it must be to have a manager on the sideline who lives and breathes the game, who simply couldn't walk away from the opportunity.
"He could have retired, easily," agreed Nolan. "He just loves the game, absolutely loves it. He's always the first up in the field, any night we're training. He's so enthusiastic still about the game, at his age and after everything he's been through. He's like a kid out on the field when you're going training. He's always pucking around balls, always messing. He loves a laugh and a joke before it obviously gets serious."
Because of his late appointment - it was announced two days before inter-county teams were permitted to resume collective training - Bennett missed all of the Carlow club championship games. Nolan won the county championship with Mount Leinster Rangers and even their Leinster club campaign had concluded by the time Bennett took over. In fact, the man who has coached club and county teams throughout Munster, Leinster and Ulster was still learning all his players' names in the early weeks of 2026.
Yet none of that mattered a whole pile because from the moment he got them all in a room together at their county's training centre last winter, he had them sold on a vision - that they'd be playing in Croke Park in mid-June, on Joe McDonagh Cup final day.
"I remember the very first night we met him in Fenagh," said Nolan. "From then, he had you. I remember meeting him the very first time and thinking, 'Jesus, I'd run through a wall for this lad', and I didn't even know who he was! I'd only just met him. That's Pat. He's brilliant.
"He was selling us a dream back in November, and he was right. Now it got tough there in the League at times but we never questioned him. And I don't think he questioned us either, when he could have during the League.
"It was all about Championship with him. He was always referencing the 'Joe Mac', especially when things were going bad in the League. He'd always reference that, 'We'll be right for the Joe Mac, we'll be right for the first round of the Joe Mac'. I think when we came out and got that first win over Laois, then any doubts at all were out the window."
Carlow operated in Division 1B of the League and suffered relegation. Aside from the quality of the opposition they were facing, and a brand new management team trying to find its feet, injuries took their toll.
"When you have a small pool of players to pick from, a couple of injuries at all changes everything," said Nolan.
But they hit the ground running with that win over Laois in the Joe McDonagh Cup opener, 4-17 to 1-17, and had their final place wrapped up after four games. In those four games, they registered 16 goals as forwards like Nolan, Marty 'Mouse' Kavanagh, James Doyle and Conor Kehoe filled their boots.
Laois, meanwhile, who have lost the last two finals, to Kildare and Offaly, having been playing with similar freedom and expression, knocking five goals in against Westmeath and four against Down. It could be a cracking final, a shootout potentially. The sort of occasion that Bennett guaranteed the players last November they'd been involved in.
"That was the dream he was selling us from November, yeah," said Nolan. "We didn't doubt him either."
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