ROWLAND A DHAB HAND
Laois goalkeeper nets four goals in the Middle East with fitting end to whirlwind season
ENDA ROWLAND has come a long way in 2019, and not just in a hurling sense.
Prior to being called up as a replacement for the PWC All Stars tour to Abu Dhabi, the Laois goalkeeper had never travelled further than Spain and is grateful for the opportunity to mix with the game’s elite in the Middle East.
But Rowland certainly isn’t out of place in that company having emerged as one of the top custodians in the game this year, with his performances earning him a well-merited All Star nomination.
“It never even crossed my mind,” he admits. “I was in college on the Friday morning and I looked at my emails and I seen this email asking me would I go. Obviously you say yeah straight away, you don’t turn down that trip.
“You’d know a good few of the lads from hurling against them. They’re all genuine lads. They wouldn’t look down on you, they’re all genuine lads, I hurled against a lot of them in college as well.”
Indeed, due to an excess of goalkeepers, Rowland had to play outfield in Friday’s All Stars game at Zayed Sport City and he managed to net four goals in the 2019 selection’s 9-16 to 8-9 loss to their 2018 counterparts.
He’ll be sharing a field with several of those players again next summer as Laois return to tier one hurling after their Joe Mcdonagh Cup success, though it was the subsequent win over Dublin in the All-ireland preliminary quarter-final that earned them most respect.
But, as things stand, the spectre of relegation from the Leinster Championship hangs over them.
“Yeah, we have to hit the same performance we gave against Dublin if not better to stay up in that and that has to be our goal,” Rowland acknowledges.
“You don’t want that yo-yo effect, you want to be improving, mixing with the big teams.
“You have Galway coming to O’moore Park in the first round, they’re the games that you want to be hurling in every week and that’s the reason you hurl. No disrespect to the Joe Mcdonagh but you don’t want to be back down there. When you get up you want to stay up.
“We have to drive it on ourselves now and it’s up to ourselves what we get out of it.”
There is a glaring double standard around relegation from the All-ireland SHC with the Munster counties safeguarded in a way that those in Leinster aren’t and Rowland feels that Laois’s progress or otherwise next year will dictate the competition structure in 2021.
“There is a double standard but I suppose that’s nothing new in terms of the way the GAA has been going.
“Put it this way, if we were to stay up next year in the Leinster Championship, I’d say there’d be a six-team Leinster Championship the following year.
“I don’t think they’d put down any of the other four teams. They won’t. If we finish bottom they will [put Laois down].
“That’s a double standard, that’s just the way it is. I don’t think that’s ever going to change in the future.”
There was something of a thaw from GAA president John Horan, however, on how many teams may participate in the Leinster Championship going forward after Laois shocked Dublin.
“As soon as we beat Dublin it was six teams,” Rowland adds.
“They would be afraid of a so-called big team going down. That’s the truth of it.”