ON the night Laois beat Offaly two weeks ago, Anthony Daly told a story on ‘The Sunday Game’ from a day three years ago when Laois were staring into the abyss of oblivion. Dublin had whacked them by 22 points when Daly ran into Willie Hyland. One of Laois’s best players, Hyland was so cut-up he told Daly he was on the verge of quitting.
It was about to get worse. Limerick annihilated Laois in the qualifiers by 25 points. A year earlier at the same stage, Cork hit them for 10-20 and beat them by 34 points. Where was the torture going to end? How many more punishment beatings were Laois going to suffer? Hyland was only 23, but how many more players were thinking like him?
A week after that Limerick defeat in 2012, Hyland publicly aired the anger and torment inside him. “This is about Laois hurling and the depression we feel,” he said. “The whole scene is beating us down. The truth is we need a complete restructure behind the scenes and for the senior team. I won’t be there in October unless the whole scene is changed. There are only so many hidings we can take. I'm sick of shaking hands with opponents after games, almost apologising for our displays."
That’s how embarrassing it had become to be a Laois hurler. Since Niall Rigney had left a couple of years earlier, Laois had spiralled into a chaotic spin which left the senior team in a heap. The two managerial appointments after Rigney – Brendan Fennelly and Teddy McCarthy – had not worked. The Laois jersey held very little respect, inside or outside the county, anymore. Some of the best hurlers had no interest in hitching their carriage to a train that looked headed for the cliff-edge.
Laois needed a key managerial appointment. It didn’t have to be a big name, just someone who could unite the county and the players, a figurehead who could provide the framework for Laois to at least be competitive again.
Initially, the search mirrored the apathy connected to Laois hurling. For a finish, there was an accidental element to the appointment. Seamus ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett took on the role after an original assignment to head-hunt someone wound up at his own door.
Plunkett had been involved with the Laois minors and was well versed in the club scene. When he accepted the job in late 2012, he had a clear vision of what he wanted – a professional framework so he could get players to buy into, and believe, in his project. He created the environment and culture players like Hyland were crying out for. A culture players could grow in.
“I was delighted ‘Cheddar’ got the job because I knew he would fight to get us the very best,” Cahir Healy recently said on Newstalk. “I knew that he wouldn’t take any crap off us, that there would be no excuses left for players. It would be all on us. I knew if we didn’t win, it was because we weren’t good enough or we weren’t putting in enough effort.”
Plunkett recruited top people. Ger Cunningham from Limerick was brought in as hurling coach, Pat Flanagan came on board for strength and conditioning, Brendan Cummins later arrived as goalkeeping coach. Only the strongest and most committed survived the early training regime because Plunkett only wanted players who were prepared to buy into his vision.
With the establishment of the Setanta programme nearly a decade earlier, which catered for the development of Laois’ young hurlers, the culture was already beginning to change. Good players were emerging from competitive minor teams. Almost half the current senior squad have come through the Setanta programme, but Plunkett’s philosophy was about more than just improving them as hurlers. He wanted to instil a new pride in the Laois jersey.
Healy told a story of being brought to a hill one time in the early stages of Plunkett’s reign, somewhere close to Borris-in-Ossory. After enduring a series of torturous runs up and down the hill, Plunkett gathered his squad around him at the top. He told them to look out over their county, and individually describe what Laois meant to them. It wasn’t rocket-science or overly innovative, but only someone with Plunkett’s grasp of their history and heritage, a Laois man who had experienced the dark days as a player, could really relate and inspire that depth of meaning and understanding. “Cheddar changed the culture for us,” said Healy. “It wouldn’t have happened without him.”
When Plunkett briefly walked away from the job three weeks ago, he did so on principle after two players played a club challenge game against his wishes. He returned a few days later when he felt his decision had made the most powerful statement possible for the future welfare and pathway of Laois hurling. His message was clear: ‘This is the way we do things now. This is the right way Laois hurling must continue to do things’.
With good players coming through, Laois continue to make steady progress. After running Galway close twice in the Leinster championship in the last two years, they go into Saturday’s semi-final with more than just a fighting chance. They are a legitimate threat now, a hurling county with real respect again.
Three years on from falling into the abyss, Laois are basking in the bright light of a whole new world.
