The promise of a close contest here and the promise of a nice prize to go with it – assuming the winners do actually fancy playing the reigning Leinster champions and beaten All-Ireland finalists Galway in the provincial semi-final, on June 16th.
That's a worry for another day, however, as neither Laois nor Carlow can afford to look past this one: Laois have won four of their last five championship meetings, including the last two in succession, but Carlow are slowly improving under manager John Meyler, and will certainly relish this shot at their nearest of rivals.
In fact both teams will be crossing swords in the league next season anyway, as Carlow were relegated from Division 1B, despite proving themselves reasonably competitive.
Yet both teams have enjoyed reasonably positive championships starts. Carlow went into the unknown against London, their first show in the Leinster championship, yet came out handy winners 4-17 to 2-13, substitute Craig Doyle helping himself to 3-2, all from play, although they did finish with 14 men.
Their superior fitness did tell in the end too, although they won't have it so easy against Laois. Marty Kavanagh also hit 0-7 and Meyler's team aren't shy of the posts or nets. Carlow were in front throughout that game, too, but the challenge here will be to stay with Laois until the end, and ideally in front.
This time last year things seemed to be going from bad to worse for Laois hurling: relegation to Division 2A in the league, followed by very heavy championship defeats to Dublin (22 points) and Limerick (25 points) clearly questioned morale, and commitment, but manager Séamus “Cheddar” Plunkett has both settled and calmed things down: there were no great expectations going into their opening game against Kevin Ryan’s ambitious Antrim, and yet Laois emerged easy enough, 1-16 to 0-13.
Plunkett has thus gone with the same starting 15, which includes former standout duel player Cahir Healy, now focusing firmly on his hurling. Matthew Whelan does switch with Joe Fitzpatrick from midfield to centre back, with Willie Hyland starting in the half forward line, and Brian Dunne in the corner.
Zane Keenan (0-5), Stephen Maher (0-4) and Tommy Fitzgerald (1-1) were all in good scoring form the last day, and that's the sort of firepower which should see them through to face Galway, especially with some enduring question marks over the security of the Carlow defence.
