On Saturday in a double bill at O’Moore Park, Portlaoise, Carlow footballers will face Louth hoping to record a first win in the Leinster championship in five years. In 2011 the county beat Louth, who had been so spectacularly wronged in the previous year’s Leinster final against Meath when about to win the title.
Because of the championship draw five years ago Carlow were already in the quarter-finals and the win advanced them to a semi-final for the first time in 53 years. Although beaten by Wexford, it had been a landmark campaign.
Luke Dempsey was manager back then and although the county had another good result the following season when drawing with Meath, the replay ended in a heavy defeat.
Structural realities
Overall, since the win against Louth, Carlow have played 12 matches in the championship and won just one, a qualifier against Waterford in 2014.
Dempsey has high regard for the county whose fortunes he guided on two separate occasions and with whom he finished in 2012 but says that structural realities place a limit on what can be achieved.
“The reality of football in Carlow is that it’s a great sporting county. The county board when I was there worked so hard to keep both codes represented at the highest level and to raise funds for a centre of excellence in Fenagh. Michael Meaney and Pat Deering, who’s now a TD, were the officers, but despite that work, the size of the county and the small number of clubs make it very hard to win.
“One brilliant chance we had was with the under-21s when I was there. We were leading against Dublin but they equalised and won by a point in extra time. But some of our best players that day were hurlers, including Denis Byrne and Eddie Byrne, who played with Mount Leinster Rangers when they got to the All-Ireland club final.
“Brendan Murphy was in his last year at under-21 but the hurlers on that team didn’t play football for the county again.”
Carlow’s most prominent achievements in recent decades have been at club level.
Mount Leinster Rangers’s extraordinary progress to a Leinster hurling title in 2013 and beyond that to the All-Ireland was an echo of what Éire Óg’s footballers achieved in the 1990s under the late Bobby Miller when the club reached two All-Ireland finals in 1993 and ’96.
O’Hanrahans were another Carlow club to win Leinster, in 2000.
Club culture though can be a problem, feels Dempsey, in that players feel that it is the most obvious route to success and the demands of intercounty training, coupled with remote prospects, isn’t an attractive option.
“Club success can be a difficulty because the county scene is a far higher level and preparation is far harder and players who have had achievements with club sides are reluctant to put additional effort into the county.
“Some of the best footballers aren’t always committed to the county. They’re not committing and they’re not interested because they feel they’re not going to achieve anything.”
Unexpected support
At this year’s congress Carlow county board proposed a motion on championship reform, which although defeated attracted an unexpected amount of support, and it also opposed the Central Council initiative to re-introduce a graded championship for Division Four counties.
Dempsey is puzzled by the refusal to compete at such a level, citing the usefulness of the much-reviled and now defunct Tommy Murphy Cup.
“Any manager will tell you that winning is important and in Croke Park having medals handed out and your captain lifting a trophy is fantastic, but I’d have to say that I respect the views both of the players and the county board.
“The best you can hope for is that the team might peak on a given day like happened in 2011 when we beat Louth. But even then we lost a couple of players who had gone on holidays they had booked in advance for dates after the first championship match and qualifier.”
