Sport

Midlands rivals Westmeath and Laois all set for tasty Tailteann opener

The two sides have found it hard to replace their icons and have spent the last decade bouncing around the divisions

Offaly’s Niall McNamee tries to evade Kevin Maguire of Westmeath. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho
Offaly’s Niall McNamee tries to evade Kevin Maguire of Westmeath. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho
Wed May 25 2022 - 17:45

It’s not today or yesterday admittedly but there was a time when Laois and Westmeath ruled the roost in Leinster.

In 2003 and 2004, when the midlands neighbours were ripping up scripts and rewriting provincial history books, you’d have got long odds on Dublin winning 16 of the next 17 Leinster titles.

Dublin may very well make it 17 from 18 on Saturday evening, only hours before Laois and Westmeath do battle on Sunday in the Tailteann Cup, that very fixture explaining just how much things have changed for both counties since those glory days of the early 2000s.

“There was a drop off,” acknowledged Westmeath captain Kevin Maguire. “I came into Westmeath around 2010. At that stage there were a lot of those lads from the 2004 era kind of finishing up their careers, the likes of Des Dolan and John Keane, lots of lads were just coming to the end of their eras.”

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No more than Laois, Westmeath found it hard to replace their icons and the two counties have spent the last decade bouncing around the divisions, each enjoying a single season in Division One and each also sampling Division Four activity.

Their fortunes have been closely aligned in recent seasons with both gaining promotion from Division Three in 2019, both surviving Division Two in 2020 and both then suffering relegation in 2021.

They’ve met so often at this stage that their players are on first name terms with each other.

Laois’ Evan O'Carroll wins the ball ahead of Kieran Kennedy of Dublin during the O'Byrne Cup Final at Dr Cullen Park. Photograph: Ken Sutton/Inpho
Laois’ Evan O'Carroll wins the ball ahead of Kieran Kennedy of Dublin during the O'Byrne Cup Final at Dr Cullen Park. Photograph: Ken Sutton/Inpho

“I think I’ve marked Evan O’Carroll probably five or six times in the last two or three years, between league and championship,” said Maguire.

Apparently, they’re still on speaking terms. “We probably won’t talk too much during the match but we got on all right, Evan’s a great lad,” said the defender.

It was all going swimmingly for O’Carroll and Laois until they ran into Westmeath in round two of this year’s league. They’d contested the O’Byrne Cup final and then beat Louth - who would eventually gain promotion - in round one of the league but losing to the Lake County opened a floodgate of sorts. Laois were eventually relegated and leaked 5-15 in a surprise Leinster preliminary round defeat to Wicklow.

“Any championship defeat is disappointing but the way we performed, that is not us,” argued Laois forward O’Carroll. “It was just one of those days. We were able to score but there’s no point doing that if you can’t defend as well. Conceding 5-15, you are never going to win any championship game doing that.”

It’s been almost five weeks since that Laois loss to Wicklow and O’Carroll reports that it has long since been parked. The panel has a different look to it too, a couple of players stepping away, several under-20s stepping up and call ups for St Joseph’s clubman Mikie Dempsey and Emo’s Niall Gorman. Still, with the Wicklow result in mind, nobody will be in any great fear of Laois.

“We are playing teams that we would be confident of beating and they would be confident of beating us,” reasoned Laois joint captain O’Carroll. “Whereas if you go into the qualifier system, you could get unlucky and get one of the Division One teams and there is a gap, no doubt about it. I am not saying you couldn’t beat them but the odds would be stacked against you. Every team in the Tailteann Cup is looking at it and feeling that they could get a good run in it.”

Westmeath had a more productive Leinster campaign, beating Longford and then pushing Kildare hard at Croke Park. Like Laois, they see the Tailteann Cup as an opportunity for redemption of sorts, as a vehicle for recovery, though it’s a knock-out tournament so more misery awaits one of them on Sunday.

“We always find they bring out the best in us,” said Maguire of Laois. “We seem to bring out the best in them too. It feels like a local derby game for us. That will bring a good bit of excitement. We got the better of them in the league this year so I’m sure they’ll be ready for action.”