From rookie teen to Laois leader, O’Carroll comes full circle
For Evan O’Carroll, his sporting life has come full circle. Back in the summer of 2013, as a precocious teenager not old enough to vote, he was propelled into the qualifier bearpit by Justin McNulty.
Now, 11 years later, McNulty is back for his second coming in the Laois football hotseat and O’Carroll is his captain.
“I owe Justin a lot for giving me the confidence and having the trust in me to go in as a 17-year-old,” he says. “I made my debut against Wexford in a qualifier game. I started against Donegal in the last-12 game up in Carrick-on-Shannon. But yeah, a long time ago.”
Laois are approaching tonight’s Leinster SFC derby date with Offaly in buoyant mood, fresh from securing National League promotion with the added bonus of a Division 4 title at Leitrim’s expense.
But even without the evidence of how promoted duo Westmeath and Leitrim fell by the provincial wayside last weekend, they’ll be wary of what comes next in Portlaoise. Whatever about championship in April being a different ball game, clashes with the old Faithful foe are rarely straight-forward.
Besides, O’Carroll’s long service has come against the backdrop of a difficult decade for Laois football. Managers have come and gone: McNulty is the seventh since the Armagh All-Ireland winner stepped down at the end of 2013.
They have oscillated between the league’s second and fourth tiers, a period of turmoil incorporating successive demotions (2016-17); back-to-back promotions (2018-19) under John Sugrue coupled with a 2018 Leinster final appearance; followed by further consecutive relegations (2021-22). That took them back to Division 4. Now, at the second attempt, they have escaped it.
O’Carroll was there for the last two games of McNulty’s first three-year spell, scoring 0-1 on his debut as Laois squeezed past Wexford to reach round four of the 2013 qualifiers. What followed, a six-point defeat to Jim McGuinness’s defending All-Ireland champions from Donegal, was an early life lesson.
“I don’t think I lasted too long on the field, I got taken off (after 31 minutes),” the Crettyard clubman recounts. “It was completely different, the physicality of the game. I did struggle. I do remember the couple of hits that I got. It was extremely physical and it was an eye-opener to what senior football is.”
Fast-forward to their Division 4 final against Leitrim, when O’Carroll delivered a bravura Man of the Match performance, shooting 0-6 (2f ) while having a key role in the first two Laois goals.
“Our main aim was to get out of Division 4 and getting to a league final and having a chance to win a trophy is always a great opportunity,” says O’Carroll, who works as a teacher in Lucan.
On their last HQ appearance, Laois had leaked eight goals to Down in a calamitous Tailteann Cup semi-final.
“A really tough one to take but there’s new lads in and it was an opportunity for the panel this year to right the wrongs of last year,” he outlines. “We went to Croke Park for a performance.”
But that result has been long parked. “It comes thick and fast. You go from winning a match against Leitrim to turning your focus straight away to Offaly. That’s going to be a massive battle against a good Division 3 team. We’re going to be up against it,” he warns.
“We played them in the Tailteann Cup last year and we drew with them. In 2019, the crowd that came to that match was probably the biggest crowd I’ve played in front of in O’Moore Park. So there’s a massive rivalry there. And we know how good Offaly are.
“When you’re winning games, you always take positives from it. We do have a lot to work on. We missed a lot of chances against Leitrim and left shots short, and we know that if we do that against Offaly they’ll punish us.”