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Laois victims of their own myth
By Eamonn O'Molloy
 Why
we all love seeing the little guys fail (or do well and then fail shortly
after)
“We have eight superb forwards and that’s more than enough.”
“Dempsey knows Laois are on the easy side of the draw and don’t
need to peak until the start of April to progress.”
ONE OF our less admirable qualities as a race is our love of seeing any
person or group of people who we think are getting above their station
fall flat on their faces but sometimes we just can’t help it.
Thus, when news came through that Laois’ latest self-styled dream
team, their current crop of under-21s, lost 1-11 to 0-3 at home to Wicklow
on Sunday in the Leinster Championship, anyone I spoke to not from that
part of the Midlands had a laugh, a smart comment and generally behaved
like it was the best news they had heard all day.
The above quotes are from a Laois supporters’ forum and were posted
well before the latest great blue and white hopes suffered their humiliation,
an embarrassment made worse because Wicklow were down to 14 men within
10 minutes.
If they learn the lessons Sunday imparted, Laois may yet have the last
laugh — 24 of their panel are underage for this grade next year
— but I have my doubts.
There seems to be something deeply amiss in the Laois psyche.
Maybe it’s perception rather than fact but I don’t think I’m
alone when I report a personal experience of hearing every second Laois
underage side billed as the next great thing.
Even the factual matter of what silverware they have accumulated seems
inflated.
Many take it as gospel that Laois have been “the strongest underage
county in the last 10 years”.
Okay, All-Ireland minor titles in ’96, ’97 and ’03,
along with three Leinster under-21 crowns and six Leinster minors in the
last dozen years are not to be sniffed at.
Yet if you’ll agree that minor silverware is an unreliable indicator
of success, those three provincial under-21 titles start to look decidedly
lonely.
Especially when you then consider that Mayo, Cork, Kerry, Galway and Tyrone
have easily bettered that ’96-’07 record at under-21 level.
Or that Armagh, Dublin and Meath all have three as well.
Or that all the above counties except Meath have added at least one under-21
All-Ireland since Beano and the boys made their minor breakthrough in
’96.
Laois have NEVER won an All-Ireland under-21 football title.
How appropriate that it was Wicklow who burst this year’s bubble
— the perfect tonic for Mick O’Dwyer on top of his reported
recovery from recent illness.
You don’t have to get the magnifying glass out on Micko’s
latest book to spot his bewilderment at how he was treated in Laois.
Leave the arguments on video analysts and dieticians at home.
Some Laois players should not have thought twice about questioning Micko
— they shouldn’t have thought it at all.
Here were players and supporters who thought minor success gave them deeper
insight than a man with an impeccable lifetime record in the game.
And if the record wasn’t enough for them, then a Leinster senior
title that still stands alone since 1946 should have been.
If Laois lose the attitude, they can still salvage something — Leinster
under-21 titles in the last two years are arguably more valuable than
All-Ireland minors and their current crop do have the potential to build
on that.
Stories of some players partying (with or without alcohol) the week before
the Wicklow game and of some ‘supporters’ abusing the under-21s
as they left the field on Sunday do not bode well.
The chance that Wicklow might just have had a better team has not entered
Laois heads yet.
If it does, they will have a chance at rectifying the situation.
Meanwhile, the odd prima donna in Laois is not the only man who needs
a mirror this week; we would do well to look at ourselves, too.
All our talk of loving a breakthrough team is waffle.
We only like to see a hitherto unsuccessful county making waves as long
as they are polite enough to return to obscurity soon after.
No-one had a big problem with Clare hurlers until that team claimed their
second All-Ireland in 1997.
Ger Loughnane was no PR guru, but the level of hatred for the Banner in
1998 was still wholly disproportionate.
Everyone’s little hearts sang when Down broke through in 1991 —
but by the time Ulster teams had had the temerity to win the next three
All-Irelands as well, good wishes had turned to begrudgery.
Armagh and Tyrone’s success has drawn a wave of criticism of their
methods, the fact that they played some superb football conveniently ignored.
When Dublin and Meath or Cork and Tipp or Galway and Mayo are not contesting
a provincial final, you’ll hear afficionados implying that the contest
is devalued.
And at the heart of our delight, every time Laois implode it is a relief
that they are not, after all, on their way to becoming a football power.
So next time you flick on Aertel and read the bad news for the blue and
white, resist the urge to punch the air.
Laois’ problems are their own and if they did solve them, would
football not be richer?
The only man entitled to a smile is at the foot of the mountains, scheming
another unlikely ambush, this May, in Croke Park, against Kildare. |
