Fitzgerald left speechless after ultra-dramatic conclusion to game

LAOIS manager Tommy Fitzgerald was almost speechless after seeing his team secure passage to the Joe McDonagh Cup final with a goal right at the death against Carlow on Saturday afternoon.

They trailed by three points in the fifth minute of injury time and Mark Dowling got the final touch of the ball as it arrived into a mass of bodies from a Podge Delaney 65.

“It’s hard to process,” stated Fitzgerald after the match, before going on to heap praise on his players.

“Sometimes you earn a bit of luck and people don’t see it in the background, but the commitment these lads have given and the honesty and respect they’ve shown the Laois jersey over the last seven months has been phenomenal.

“They have more commitment and they’ve made more sacrifices than any Laois team I was ever on, and people don’t see that.

“Even when things weren’t going well for us today and we were making mistakes they came with a really defiant attitude and we said we’d fight to the end and it only matters who’s ahead after 70 minutes and the draw did it for us today.

“I’m just so happy for the players, it’s been a tough few days.

“We had a collective gym session on Monday with lads coming from an hour and a half away, we had collective pitch sessions during the week and they’re doing all the right stuff off the pitch,” he added.

“It’s only when you’re back involved with an intercounty senior team that you see the level of commitment involved and the respect that they show the Laois jersey.” Conditions were tough in Carlow as a mist of rain fell for the duration, leading to errors and mistakes on both sides and Fitzgerald said: “There’s been so much dry weather over the last couple of weeks then we had the showers so it made it difficult for handling, and Carlow are a good side, they’re going to put you under pressure and they’re a physical side.

“There was handling errors on both sides, but it was a high pressure game and everyone knew the stakes coming into today.” Laois’s passage to the final hit a major snag last week when Kildare pulled off a shock win in O’Moore Park, leaving a real sense of dejection afterwards.

To recover from that Fitzgerald said: “We were all on the ground and we weren’t meant to meet on Monday night but we brought them in to refocus and I was reenergised personally speaking and I think the players as well after meeting up as a group as well.

“I felt leaving Monday night there was a real good focus for the challenge ahead, so in terms of lifting them it wasn’t that difficult because they knew what was at stake and it’s what they’ve been training for all year.” Saturday’s draw and Kildare’s win over Down means that the Lilywhites will be the opposition in Croke Park for the main event on the 8th of June and all focus is now on that.

“We’ll have to refocus and come down off this, everybody saw how good Kildare were last week,” he stated.

“They comprehensively beat us last week so it’s going to be a challenge and we picked up a couple of injuries in that game in Fiachra (C Fennell) and Cody (Comerford) and they weren’t able to tog today as a result.

“We’ll have to mind the bodies over the next couple of weeks and see who we can get back but it’s great to be looking forward to that in two weeks’ time.”