SUGRUE WANTS TO SEE A SURGE
LOSING Leinster finalists become so infected with selfdoubt that they tend to implode. For the last eight years, those vanquished by Dublin have lost their fourth round qualifier. The average winning margin of the Dubs’ eight Leinster final wins is running at 10 points a game, which is particularly cold comfort for Laois manager John Sugrue as he eyeballs Monaghan tomorrow. Perhaps you take your measure from where the most comfort lies and it is always about the size of the losing margin. After all, Kildare only lost to Dublin by nine points but it could be argued that Laois gave them twice the game. Kildare were dead and buried inside 11 minutes last year while Laois were just one point adrift after 26. And with Dublin it is how long you stay standing rather than how many times you go down in the end that matters. ‘No, I don’t think it was foolhardy to think that we could give them a match,’ suggests Sugrue, when reminded of his pre-Leinster final declaration of intent. ‘It turned out that we were able to match them for about 30 minutes until we started to lose a bit of shape and came under too much strain. ‘In the recent past teams have been beaten out the gate by 15 or 20 minutes.’ And if Laois can stay long enough in the game it gives them an obvious fighting chance, despite that woeful losing record by beaten Leinster finalists. ‘It’s also a fact that we didn’t win two successive Leinster games in 11 years so I think what we’ve done this year is slightly different to what we’ve
done in recent years,’ Sugrue feels. ‘And to some degree I’d like to think that we can be slightly different to the provincial runners-up from Leinster for the last eight years. ‘I think we can challenge in this game and that’s what we’re going out to do, challenge Monaghan and see where we can get to with them. ‘If we can extend that 30minute window that we had against Dublin to 50-55 minutes against Monaghan then it gets to a point where ultimately we are growing as a team and they are maybe coming back to us.’ And what makes Laois different to those who allowed their heads to be wrecked by Dublin is that they were the only Division 4 team to make it to the final. ‘We’ve got to stay real about where we’ve been. We’ve also got to be ambitious. We’ve had our measure against the standard bearers in the country. We’re now playing a team that are a very solid team and we’ll be very respectful to them. ‘They have their Ulster titles and no one’s going to take that off them, but we’ve got to push and see if we can measure ourselves against these guys.’