Too little too late for Magee’s footballers
LAOIS 2-16 WICKLOW 3-10
THERE was a miracle on the cards for a few wonderful moments last Saturday in Joule Park, Aughrim, but, sadly, in the end, all that was achieved was yet another tame exit from championship football by a Wicklow side that continues to work itself into promising positions but has neither the self-belief nor the shrewdness to go all the way.
At 2-16 to 1-10 the game looked rightfully dead and buried for Wicklow after they had been physically bullied by a Laois team that really and truly don’t look as though they will populate the latter stages of qualifier football in 2017.
A frustrated crowd watched an opening half where Wicklow’s nervy start saw them turn over ball and lapse into that holding style of play where they try and work themselves into position, all the while showing a vulnerability to physically powerful defenders.
“Send it into Seanie,” was the call of the day from healthy crowd in Joule Park, Aughrim. Unlike the league, where support had dwindled to frightening figures, the Wicklow fans turned up in decent numbers to see their footballers take on Laois in beautiful sunshine last Saturday evening.
But their calls to send it into Seanie fell on deaf ears for the most part with Johnny Magee saying after the game that his players couldn’t keep breaking their backsides to win the ball and then just kick it away to a well populated Laois defence.
Trouble is, plenty of times when that ball was pumped in, Seanie Furlong managed to make a nuisance of himself and profits were made more often than not. And as every Wicklow GAA supporter will tell, there’s few better footballers than Seanie Furlong at winning his own ball or at least at breaking ball to a colleague.
Johnny Magee said it was a “nervous start” by his players and that in the second half they came out and played somewhere close to their potential. The trouble is, that potential has rarely been glimpsed in the past three years, and never long enough to claim a championship victory and rarely enough to win a league game.
At what point will that potential ever be produced or engineered or inspired by the players and management to the point where Wicklow supporters can travel in any confidence of their side winning a game. It seems as though Wicklow are now in the dreadful position where they don’t know how to win, they don’t know how to force their way to the front and stay there. We are all too commonly being left in the ‘close call’ or ‘brave burst’ or ‘gallant effort’ or ‘just fell short’ department.
Laois looked like they always had at least one more gear in this game. They could always create a scoring chance easier than Wicklow could. Donie Kingston’s goal was a thing of beauty in the second half. Graham Brody’s kickout is clutched from the sky at midfield and fired 50 yards down in front of Kingston who claims and turns and leaves his Wicklow defenders for dead before slotting home past Robert Lambert. Boom! Simple stuff.
The 1-08 to 0-05 half-time score was accurate in terms of the play. Wicklow’s defensive structure and Laois’ physical dominance have kept Wicklow’s score down while the visitors could easily have been four or five points more ahead but for wayward shooting on their part.
They raced into a 0-03 to 0-00 lead within six minutes and had three wides on the board as well before a foul on Mark Kenny allowed Seanie Furlong the opportunity to drop over a beauty out of his hands.
An Tochar’s Brendan Kennedy was sweeping around the proximity of big Donie Kingston who was being marked by Anthony McLoughlin despite the Blessington man being named at midfield. His brother Paul had been named at centre-half back but there was little chance of him lining out seeing as he was on holidays. Niall Gaffney was also named in the subs but the new Mrs Gaffney – he was married last week apparently – might have been less than impressed had her beloved turned up in Joule Park, Aughrim, on Saturday evening.
In place of Paul Cunningham came Darragh Fitzgerald but the AGB star performed a much more defensive role than he is accustomed and we saw very few of his penetrating runs up the field and the game seemed robbed of his creativity but, to be fair, that Laois attack did take serious minding and somebody had to be back there to do it.
Wicklow suffered a hammer blow shortly after Seanie’s opener. Good work by Darragh Fitzgerald saw him flick the ball away from burly full-back Mark Timmons who had rampaged up the field. That loose ball was gathered by the impressive Gary Walsh with Ciaran Hyland in close pursuit. Walsh fed the productive Colm Begley who launched a lovely ball off his left down into space in front of Donie Kingston with Anthony McLoughlin chasing out behind.
Kingston looked to return the pass to Begley who had continued his run but he overcooked his lofted handpass and the ball fell sweetly to Walsh who easily sidestepped the retreating John Crowe and slotted home a wicked shot to the bottom corner of Robert Lambert’s net giving the Aughrim man very little hope of saving it.
The turnover and fouling were killing Wicklow at this stage.
Darragh Fitzgerald got turned over as he trotted through the middle with the cries of ‘hit it into Seanie’ ringing in his ears.
Darren Hayden was over zealous in his tackling of Eoin Buggie and conceded a free. Kingston went short but Stephen Kelly fouled his man and Kingston dropped over a point from a better angle, 1-04 to 0-01.
Really excellent running by Darren Hayden produced a free for Wicklow and Furlong did the necessary but David Conway struck back at the other end after good work from Begley and John O’Loughlin.
Two wides from Mark Kenny and one from Rory Finn were followed by Paul Cunningham’s opening score to make it 1-05 to 0-03 in favour of Laois. The Bray Emmets man put in an honest and admirable shift on Saturday and he always looked like he had the beating of his man and we can only wonder about what scavenging he could have enjoyed had more ball gone in long.
The crowd were still calling for the ball to be pumped long into Seanie with some now shouting “get it into Seanie Furlong” rather than just “get it into Seanie” for fear that his colleagues might be uncertain as to who ‘Seanie’ was.
Tremendous tracking back by Darren Hayden saw the Éire Óg Greystones man put in a superb block on Eoin Buggie and Gary Walsh screwed over the resulting 45 and points from Dean Healy and Cunningham left Wicklow trailing by 1-08 to 0-05 at the break.
Johnny Magee introduced John McGrath and Peadar Traynor at the back and it was McGrath who made a major impact on this game.
That impact didn’t happen immediately as Donie Kingston pushed Laois further ahead with a high lobbed point but McGrath’s first ball was a delicious pass out to Mark Kenny who sent Darren Hayden powering towards goal with a neat little handpass but Hayden’s shot was straight at Graham Brody and the Laois netminder got a strong hand to the ball and Laois cleared the danger.
Trevor Collins added a point for the visitors before they lost captain Stephen Attride to a black card for a foul on Dean Healy.
Cunningham pointed the resulting free to make it 1-10 to 0-06 with Evan O’Carroll coming in for Attride.
An exquisite Stephen Kelly ball to John McGrath saw the Baltinglass man step back inside and fire over a beautiful point and after Laois had added two more points McGrath popped up again to add another sweet score, 1-12 to 0-08.
A Mark Kenny point was followed by Wicklow’s opening goal which, interestingly, came from a high ball from John McGrath down on top of Seanie Furlong who gathered, help up the play, handpassed to Paul Cunningham who fired home sweetly past Brody. 1-12 to 1-09.
Kingston and O’Loughlin pointed for Laois before a converted free from Seanie and then Laois bagged their second goal through Kingston to all but put the tie to
bed you felt.
But wait. Laois added two more points, one from Damien O’Connor, the other from Begley. Seanie Furlong won a free close in and went for goal but it went off the post.
Back came Wicklow. John McGrath had either been told to lob the ball in long or else he was taking matters into his own hands because he sent another bomb down on top of Seanie and the Kiltegan man broke it to Paddy Byrne who lashed home superbly to the back of the net. Game on, as they say!
It’s all Wicklow now. McGrath wins possession. This man looks like he is in the mood to take on the world. Nothing can stop him. He fires off a rocket of a shot which is saved by Brody. It spills to Furlong, Shot, saved by Brody. It’s spills to Cunningham at the back post and it’s over the line and there’s only three points between the teams at 2-16 to 3-10.
Back come Wicklow but Dean Healy is turned over and Laois clear. Robert Lambert comes out of his goal like a train and clears the ball to Anthony McLoughlin. He finds John McGrath who gathers and turns his body to protect himself from Colm Begley’s approach. The pair collide and Begley wraps McGrath up and drags him to the ground, Aussie Rules style. The whistle sounds and to the amazement of the Wicklow supporters John McGrath is booked and Laois have a free and all of a sudden the Wicklow momentum is gone.
Laois work the ball up the field and win a free which is fired wide by Kingston but that’s it, times up, and we’ll never know what would have happened had Wicklow managed to launch one more high ball down on top of Seanie Furlong.
Scorers - Laois: Gary Walsh 1-4 (1f, 2 ‘45), Donie Kingston 1-4 each; Colm Begley 0-2; David Conway, John O’Loughlin, Trevor Collins, Alan Farrell, Ross Munnelly, Damien O’Connor 0-1 each.
Wicklow: Paul Cunningham 2-3 (1f); Paddy Byrne 1-0; Seanie Furlong 0-3 (3f); John McGrath, Mark Kenny 0-2.
Laois: Graham Brody; Darren Strong, Mark Timmons, Stephen Attride; Eoin Buggie, Padraig McMahon, Damien O’Connor; Brendan Quigley, Colm Begley; Alan Farrell, John O’Loughlin, Trevor Collins; Gary Walsh, Donie Kingston, David Conway. Subs: James Finn for B Quigley (32); Evan O’Carroll for S Attride (BC, 42); Ross Munnelly for G Walsh (44); Kieran Lillis for P McMahon (46); Ambrose Doran for E O’Carroll (61); Gareth Dillon for D Conway (65).
Wicklow: Robert Lambert; Ciaran Hyland, Stephen Kelly, Brendan Kennedy; Darren Hayden, Darragh Fitzgerald, John Crowe; David Boothman, Anthony McLoughlin; Rory Finn, Dean Healy, Conor Ffrench; Mark Kenny, Seanie Furlong, Paul Cunningham. Subs: John McGrath for D Boothman (h-t); Peadar Traynor for C Ffrench (h-t); Paddy Byrne for D Fitzgerald (57); Padraig Byrne for P Traynor (65).
Referee: B Cassidy (Derry)