Agonising experience of the past informs McDonald not to take Laois for granted
WHEN the Wexford hurlers have been discussing today’s Leinster SHC quarter-final in Portlaoise, it has been couched in the language of the modern GAA player. Concentrating on the game in front of us, not looking past Laois – that sort of thing. The message was clear. The glittering prize of welcoming Kilkenny to Wexford Park on June 10 won’t blind them.
However, as Conor McDonald explains, those cliches have a bit more substance among many of the Yellowbellies that will line out in O’Moore Park. The gifted forward had just turned 18 when he was part of a Wexford Under 21 side that played Antrim in the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final at Semple Stadium.
On the streets of Gorey, McDonald was told by all and sundry that they were already in an All-Ireland final. On a sunny August evening in Thurles, Antrim ambushed them.
‘It is very disconcerting to hear all this talk about playing Kilkenny in Wexford Park,’ McDonald says. ‘Wexford people should know at this stage, from what happened with the U21s that it is not the right idea. We under-estimated a team that time and, personally, I will never do that again.’
Lee Chin has spoken before of how that defeat to Antrim still haunts him. McDonald is meticulous in keeping recordings of all his games for Wexford since bursting on the scene as a teenager. .
‘It still hurts, that defeat, yeah,’ the 21-year-old sighs. ‘I have it on the Sky player at home still and I have never, ever looked at it. To this day. I have all my games for Wexford recorded and they are all viewed. But that one still says not viewed.
‘It did impact on my confidence at the time. To know that you got to that stage, an All-Ireland semifinal, and you could have performed so much better. If that didn’t impact your confidence, you would have to ask yourself why are you playing the game.’
McDonald had a rather odd way of channeling the hurt. He was in his first year with the senior side at Naomh Eanna and the following morning, got a notification on his phone to say there was a practice match. So he strolled down to the club and tried to hurl the pain out of his system.
‘I don’t know if it was the right idea or not. I don’t even know why I did it, but I just remember waking up early the next morning and looking at a message on my phone and deciding, right I am going to play this. The lads at the club didn’t really talk to me a whole lot. I think they had a fair idea to stay well clear. But for the mind, just to get a score or two, to ease the mind a little bit, that was the right thing to do.’
So when McDonald, who recently finished a business course in DIT and is residing back at home, has been stopped in the street by passers-by in recent weeks with talk of Kilkenny, he cuts them off at the pass. He’s not being rude. It’s just he has the scars from past experience.
And Laois will present a real challenge for the reenergised Yellowbellies this afternoon, especially with Davy Fitzgerald absent from the dressing room and the
sideline. In Ross King and Paddy Purcell, the midlanders have an impressive midfield partnership that scored for fun in the round-robin games.
‘Of course, people are asking me about Kilkenny. That’s understandable. They are thinking about what is possible but I just blank it out,’ McDonald explains. ‘Looking forward, it would be nice to have that kind of game down in Wexford Park, but every game in the Championship is like an All-Ireland final now. That’s the way I see it.
‘We are going to have a tough task in the first round, that is the way we are looking at it. And we can’t look past that, because we can’t see into the future.’ McDonald has been one of the players who has had to play a different role under Fitzgerald, sometimes being asked to forage further up the field, although Wexford are still depending on his accuracy to keep the scoreboard ticking over. However, the attacker takes issue with the suggestion that the players are putting in more effort for Fitzgerald than they did under Liam Dunne. ‘It would be very unfair to say that we are working a bit harder for Davy than we did for Liam. I think we worked pretty hard the last few years, it is just things didn’t go our way.
‘It was just the fresh ideas and fresh voice that Davy brought and we are trying to do things his way. It’s Davy’s enthusiasm and his will to win that is infectious and that has really had an effect on the team.’
With Fitzgerald banished to the stands. It will be interesting to see if his team can play with that same energy this afternoon. If not, McDonald may need to draw on the painful memories of an earlier ambush to ensure that things go according to plan for Wexford.