As Reds ready for battle
village, the fact I’m an hour down the road I’m not seeing that, I’m not in the village on a daily basis. From talking to the players I think they’re just looking forward to it at this stage. I think they realise it’s not an opportunity they’ll get every year and I think they’re focused on putting in a performance.”
Glenealy won’t be given much of a chance against the Kilkenny opposition and Laffan would have pulled off a huge shock if he leads the team to victory, what does he see in St Patrick’s?
“They seem to be strong all over, they’re putting up big scores. They scored 25 points on the quarter final and 2-20 last weekend in the quarter final. They’ve three or four very strong forwards. They’re half back line are supposed to be physically strong, they’re midfielders are supposed to be mobile. I have done a little bit of work on it but from I’m hearing they’re not going to have too many weaknesses.
“I’m trying to focus on our team now and get a performance out of our lads and see where it takes us. If we were to focus too much on the opposition we might nullify our own positives. We have to score to win these matches so there’s no point in thinking too negative. We have to perform to the best of our ability.
“If we get a good performance it will take a very good team to beat us. By all accounts they are very strong but I don’t think we can let that hamper us.”
Not too many managers will tell you their tactical plans in advance but Laffan is fairly relaxed about who will mark Kevin Kelly.
“Sure look if he’s in the full forward line Warren will pick him up and if he’s in the half forward line Danny will pick him up. It’s very straight forward, I don’t want to change our team around too much to suit them. For some of the matches he moved out to midfield. They tend to move their forwards around quite a bit, their wing forwards can end up corner forward and vice versa.
“It’s probably hard to nail them down but we’ll try to plan for as many eventualities as we can.” DANNY STAUNTON has played a captain’s part throughout the year and he shared his thoughts with us before Glenealy’s final with St Patrick’s, Ballyragget on Saturday. What does it mean to him to have the honour of captaining the team, first to county success, and then to the Leinster final?
“It’s just a massive thing to be captain of Glenealy, thinking of the few lads who were captain before of winning teams and how well respected they were. It’s a privilege for me and for the family of course. Being captain and then getting to a final, it’s fantastic. We started a bit of a run and we’ve been playing as well as we can.
“Hopefully we’ll see how the final goes. We don’t know much about them and they don’t know much about us and we’ll see how it goes.”
Their main player is Kevin Kelly, a forward on the Kilkenny team. Staunton could be tasked with marking the Kilkenny ace if he’s moved back into centre back and it would be tough challenge for the Glenealy man.
“You go out to mark the best lads, that’s how you get better. You can have good games against players who aren’t the best and it’s not a reflection on how well you’re getting on. The way to measure how well you’re doing your job is to perform against the best lads.
“He’s a big challenge, he’s on the Kilkenny team, obviously from that sense he’s a very good hurler. But it’s only one lad against another and there are another 14 match ups as well.
“I’d be looking forward to it, if I was marking him it would be fantastic and a great buzz to play against someone like that. If I’m not I’ll do my job and he has to do his and whoever comes out on top comes out on top.”
What was the sense throughout the year towards success? Did they set out thinking they could win at the start of the year or was there a point during the season when they thought they could do it?
“We were just concentrating on getting back to the final, we hadn’t been to a final in two or three years. Even when we got to the semi-final, there were a lot of nerves. Greystones had drawn with us in the league part of it and we knew they had nothing to lose. There was a bit of pressure on us to get to the final and thank God we got over them and into the final.
“We were coming into that final underdogs I suppose, Bray were hot favourites and we were up against it. We just managed to stick in it and then maybe got away in the end, we were a bit flattered. There was no point when we felt entitled to win it or there to win, just stick in there and see what happens. Get back to a final was the first step and then everything after that was a bonus.”
Gary Laffan has come in to the club and has been very successful in his first year, what has he brought to the club as manager? What qualities does he have?
“He sets you down and focusses you that you have your own individual job to do and if we manage to do all our jobs we’ll be very hard to beat. All the backs have their jobs, to mark their forwards and hold them as much as they can. And then the forwards have to perform after that and get their scores.
“That’s all it is, just break it down that everyone has their job to do and nothing has to be special or fancy or flamboyant. He’s just been drilling into us that we have our jobs to do and that’s what we focus on trying to do for him.”