WE HAVE TO BUILD ON THE SUMMER OF OUR LIVES
Laois hurling is currently undergoing a renaissance and Paddy Purcell is keen to maintain the momentum
PADDY Purcell’s moment in the sun came long after the television cameras were switched off. Two hours after the broadcast of the All-Stars had concluded, some official realised that the Laois midfielder hadn’t been recognised for being the outstanding player in this year’s Joe McDonagh Cup. A scheduling issue was the explanation proffered for the afterthought.
Purcell doesn’t particularly care about that. It was nice to get the award, He was bothered, though, that no other player’s contribution in the competition was deemed worthy of acknowledgement. He feels there were half-a-dozen of his own teammates who deserved recognition of some kind. And players from Westmeath, Kerry and Antrim too. Instead, there was nothing.
The nonsensical decision to quietly remove the Champion 15 Joe McDonagh Cup team hardly came at the best time for the GAA, given that only a couple of weeks earlier president John Horan had succeeded in rail-roading through a hastily put-together second tier football championship. And when he did so, he made a big deal of the fact that there would be a separate All-Star scheme and plenty of media coverage.
Yet, look how the best side, and the best player, in the second tier of hurling this summer was treated. And remember Laois played well enough in 2019 to gate-crash the AllIreland quarter-finals. But they received little recognition on the night when the GAA acclaimed the season’s best.
‘It was nice recognition,’ Purcell says of his individual award. ‘But it’s a pity that a few more of the team didn’t get recognised as well. We were after having the summer of our lives and it would have been nice if a few more lads were rewarded for that, too.
‘We probably thought we deserved something more. We were one of the last six teams in the All-Ireland Championship. I think someone said because Enda [Rowland] and Jack [Kelly] were nominated for the AllStar team, that they couldn’t have been nominated for another team. But that didn’t make sense. And even for the lads nominated alongside me, Shane Conway and Killian Doyle, they had excellent seasons with Kerry and Westmeath, they deserved a bit more recognition.
‘Westmeath are after getting to two finals in a row, just falling short. That achievement should be noted, given they put so much into their summer. A bit of acknowledgment at the end of the year for what they had done and how they played. It doesn’t mean as much as medals at the end of the day, but it would be nice and get their efforts out to a wider audience.’
This weekend, four top-tier counties – Limerick, Wexford, Tipperary and Kilkenny – have been flown to New York by the GPA to play the Super 11s. Perhaps, the players body should have extended one of those four invitations to the Joe McDonagh champions, rather than the elite.
Purcell wouldn’t have been able to go to New York this weekend, anyway. He has the pressing matter of today’s Leinster club semi-final against Carlow’s St Mullins, the side that shocked Cuala a fortnight ago. And even though Purcell has been invited on the All-Stars tour, he hopes to be involved in a Leinster final that weekend.
Rathdowney-Errill’s demolition of Offaly champions St Rynagh’s in the previous round illustrated that their summer of summers is still having an impact in Laois. There’s still a feelgood factor about hurling in the midlands and everyone is feeding off that.
Purcell was one of five Laois senior players who re-joined the club following their spirited display against Tipperary in Croke Park, which ended with a lap of honour. For once, county players weren’t going back to their club crushed by the weight of the world.
‘When the five of us county lads came back into training, you could feel that there was a bit of a buzz around the place,’ Purcell recalls. ‘There has been some years when you have been hurling for Laois and when you go back into the club, nearly the last thing you want to do is hurl again, because you are coming off the back of a bad defeat or just a disappointing summer that you just wanted to end.
‘But this year, it was different. The five of us were all buzzing to get back out on the pitch after the summer we had. You just want to keep that momentum going. I think the lads in the club fed off that, and I think it was the same across Laois. ‘These last few weeks are definitely the most enjoyable I have ever had playing hurling. To do what we did with Laois and now do what we are doing with the club, to still be hurling in November and be a step away from a Leinster final, is brilliant. I’m loving it.’
It’s seven years since Purcell and Rathdowney-Errill were at this stage. He was only 20 at the time and felt the good times would always roll.
‘When you are young and reach a Leinster semi-final, you think this is going to happen nearly every year. Of course, it doesn’t turn out like that. I have had to wait a while to play in another one. Back then, we probably felt that we left it behind us on the day against KilcormacKilloughey, so we want to make amends for that.’
However, Purcell is not taking anything for granted against St Mullins. Rathdowney-Errill recently played Mount Leinster Rangers in a challenge. ‘And they gave us a bit of a trimming, and Mullins got out of Carlow ahead of them, so that should be a bit of a warning about this match,’ he points out.
‘No more than ourselves, they will be seeing this as a great opportunity to get to a Leinster final. And with Laois, we have played Carlow a lot in the past few years, so we know plenty about the likes of Marty Kavanagh and James Doyle.’
That a club from Laois are a step away from a Leinster final underlines the progression in the midlands over the past year. Eddie
Brennan’s arrival re-vitalised the county team and that has seeped down to the clubs. Purcell works in Nenagh as an agricultural advisor and knows that the respect for hurling in the county has trickled into neighbouring Tipperary.
However, Purcell and his Laois teammates don’t want the summer of 2019 to be a one-off. They want the O’Moore County to become an accepted member of hurling’s top table, an exclusive club in Irish sport for too long.
‘When Eddie came in last year, it was just about putting respect back in the jersey. We have done that now, but we want to build on it. So trips up to Croke Park can be a regular thing for Laois supporters and days like beating Dublin don’t happen once in a blue moon.
‘We are under no illusions, the step-up next year is going to be massive,’ Purcell says of Laois now being part of the Leinster SHC. ‘But there is no relegation next year, so we will have that safety net to get accustomed to tier one hurling. I
WE DESERVED GREATER RECOGNITION, WE WERE ONE OF SIX SIDES LEFT IN THE ALL-IRELAND
think it was hard on Carlow this year, because you need 12 to 18 months to get up to speed with the pace of the game. It can’t be done in a few months.’
There is a definite divide in Laois between hurling and football, but Purcell has seen the effect of silverware on young people in the county and how watching their team play in Croke Park has energised everyone.
‘It looks like nearly every young lad in Laois is carrying around a hurl at the minute. We don’t want to win the Joe McDonagh Cup again, because we want to stay in the Liam MacCarthy, but just bringing the trophy around schools over the past couple of months. Young kids don’t know if the trophy is tier one or tier two, they just see the trophy and that their county is a winning team.
‘For a couple of weeks during the summer, there wasn’t a Laois jersey to be got in the county. And even though there is a big divide in the county, I heard of buses going up to Croke Park for the quarter-final from the far side of Portlaoise, where there’s no hurling. Everyone got behind us. We want to create that again.’
If Purcell can inspire RathdowneyErrill this afternoon and help drive them into a provincial decider, it will be yet more evidence that the Laois revolution is in full swing.