‘Feels like two points lost rather than a point gained’ - Duff

Keely Burke 

THE Laois ladies had to settle for a point against Limerick on Sunday afternoon after their impressive second-half comeback was undone when Deborah Murphy converted a free in the 65th minute to level the sides in Ballylinan.

Manager Stephen Duff said after the game that it felt like two points lost rather than a point gained, but commended his players’ second-half performance to get into a winning position.

“Yeah, it is, if we still win our last two games we're still into a final. Nothing won, nothing lost. It did feel like two points loss, especially when we were five or six points down at half time to get back to one up. Decision-making killed us, absolutely killed us. There's a glaring hole there, when we've got a running team against us we don't play very well. I thought we were decent in attack and turned over balls that we shouldn’t have turned over. When they ran at us we struggled, especially in the first half. We’ll take learnings from that, it was just disappointing. We're still in the same place as we were when we started today and if win our last two games, we get into a final,” he said.

Laois were trailing by four points when Mo Nerney was shown a yellow card and it looked as if Limerick would run away with the game but Duff’s side kept Limerick scoreless while scoring 1-2, all from Emma Lawlor to go ahead for the first time after 49 minutes.

“We seem to play very well when our backs are to the wall. Our backs are to the wall now to get to the final that everyone expected us to get to. But sure look, it is what it is. In those 10 minutes, 14 and a half minute period, judging by the referee, we did play quite well.

We're trying to talk to the girls about playing in broken play and how good we can be. I think we got our two goals off turnovers high up the pitch again. When they do stick to our principles we can be quite good. Learnings from it, yeah, was it an overall positive performance? No. Some moments of absolute mental decision-making cost us. But look, we'll learn from that, we'll be better. As I said to you last week, there's nothing won in March. It's never as bad as it seems, it's never as good as it seems, so we'll stick to that,” Duff said.

All of Laois’ subs had a huge effect on the game and they also lifted the players on the pitch. It’s all about building ‘strength and depth’ according to Duff.

“We're trying to build our strength and depth. Ashling Fitz got taken off at half time. She didn't have a bad game, it's just that the pace was kind of a bit too much for her. She’s been a savage good footballer for us coming into the game. We wanted to give her a start because every player wants to start. I hope it doesn't kill her because we're trying to build strength and depth. We don't want to have 15 or 16 players, we want to have 23, 24, 25 players.

“We've started 25 players so far and we've used 32 players or whatever it is. But yeah, Kearney had a great game when she came on. Her pace brought an awful lot of life to the game. We had our two footballing wing forwards on thinking they were going to sit back and they did but we didn't really have enough pace going through the middle. So Grainne (Moran) and Katie (Donoghue) had to be sacrificed in that scenario. Emily Lacey and Ciara Burke had great games. Fiona Dooley, I don't think the county realise how good she is. She's probably our best player at the minute. She's so strong and she's so powerful. She's carrying a bit of an injury. We were trying to protect her but unfortunately, we couldn't protect her when we needed to go there. She gave us great power running forward but yeah, all our subs contributed but I think a lot of players contributed so yeah, we're happy enough,” he said.

Division 3 is tight at the top with Cavan and Wexford vying for a spot in the top two which secures promotion and a place in the league final. The Laois manager says his side will go for it but that they’ll take whatever comes out of it after their game against Wexford on March 30.

“Let's go for it, whether we get there or we don't get there. It's not the end of our year. We still qualify straight for the semi-final at Leinster and win one game there and we’re in a Leinster final then everything changes and everything opens up for you. So look, we're learning from the league. I said to you at the very start of this league process, that the league wasn't our goal. It’s still the same. We could have picked up a couple of wins along the way. Extra wins, we could have put ourselves in a better position. Could have, should have, would have but we didn't,” Duff ended.