Laffan is the cure for Reds
Garry and ‘Honda’ do the job
GARRY LAFFAN was a contented looking man on the field in Joule Park, Aughrim, after the final whistle of the Dacia Cars Senior hurling championship final against Bray Emmets last Sunday.
The All-Ireland winner of 1996 brought a renewed passion and zeal to the Glenealy camp this year as they asserted themselves on the Wicklow championship.
Even in the choice of playing against the wind in the first half was testament to the confidence and self belief that oozed through the Red soldiers.
“We always wanted to play against the wind in the first half, we’ve done that all year, we try and defend as best we can up to halftime. We don’t go with defensive systems as in sweepers, we just try and go man to man and just be as strong as we can on the ball,” said Laffan.
Alan Driver’s goal in the first half was key to Glenealy’s staying the game at half-time and Laffan described it as a “tonic”.
“Look, the goal in the first half was a tonic for us. It kept us in the game, there was only a point in it at half-time and coming out with a bit of a breeze, we sort of expected them to go with the sweeper which was fine, as I said to our lads, we’ll have six backs to their five forwards then, so, if we only gave away six points again the wind, why are we going to give away more when we have the wind,” he added.
“Luckily, it worked out for us, some days it doesn’t. A few years ago I was involved with a team and we went in 15 points down at half-time after playing against the wind and got bet by two in the end,” he said.
The switching of Warren Kavanagh and Danny Staunton in the second half was another key move in this game. Laffan said Kavanagh’s ability to hurl off both sides and his fondness for open spaces suited the full-back down to the ground.
“To be fair, sometimes things work for you off the back of mistakes, and really you know, Padraig Doyle had caught a few balls on Danny, and Danny had been hurling great at centre back all year, and I just threw the dice at it and said, “Look Warren, you go out there and see if you can stop that”, and, look, Warren is a massive hurler and he’s not released as a full-back but we have to play someone there and when he went out the field sure that suited him down to the ground and he’s able to strike left and right and he had a massive game after that,” he said.
“But, Danny tightened up the whole full-back line as well and, in the second half, ‘Bosco’ was getting a bit tired on their midfielder and we threw him in wing forward and sent Robert in to man mark the midfielder and ‘Bosco’ ended up winning two or three frees and a point from play on the wing. Sometimes these things work for you, they weren’t pre-planned, sometimes you have to just go with the flow,” he added.
Glenealy captain Danny Staunton said in his speech that Garry Laffan arrived up to Glenealy with his ‘Honda’. Thinking that the Glenealy manager was a rider of the old reliable Honda 50 motorbike we asked Garry what the story was.
“The guy that’s working with me is from Wexford as well, his name is Johnny Doyle, but they call him ‘Honda’ because he used to be a Honda car salesman years ago so that’s where that came from,” he said.
“I’ve never been on a Honda 50 in my life, but who knows what will happen when we get to Glenealy tonight,” he added.
Another important aspect of the victory on Sunday was the fact that Ciaran Fleming did not send any Glenealy men off.
Laffan said that it was something he spotted as an issue before he came up to Glenealy and he tried to tackle it as the year went on.
“When I came up here first and before I came up I did a lot of research on the last few years, the four-in-a-row and all that and I read a lot of old papers and the one thing that stood out for me was discipline a little bit and we always had a man sent off in vital games and we always ended up losing games by a point. I worked really hard on that from day one. Now, look, it was a bit of a sea change for them and you don’t change things over-night but if you look at that there today we might have given away four or five scoreable frees, we’d no man sent off. I think our discipline was better this year than it was, even in the early stages and I think that was a key factor of it,” he said.
The former Wexford star says that it’s great to see the older lads getting another county medal but it’s even better for the youth.
“There’s 40 or 50 or maybe more, 70 or 80 medals in that dressing room for the older players and it’s great to see the young lads coming through.
“Like, young Bosco was the star in the semi-final, 2-02 from play, it was always going to be a tough ask for him today, just out of Minor, but he worked very hard, and the lads who weren’t going well were still working hard and that’s important,” he said.