Ronan Hayes is no stranger to the disappointments of Laois. Earlier in his Dublin career, he was on site for the crushing 2019 defeat in O’Moore Park within days of the high of having terminated Galway’s summer.
If that wasn’t bad enough, there were flashbacks last winter at the same venue when his club Kilmacud Crokes, hoping to reach a first Leinster club hurling final, crashed out to the season’s surprise package, Clough-Ballacolla, who ensured that it would instead be their first final.
It was put to the county full forward at the launch of the Beacon sponsorship in Kilmacud that he had a few reasons to be wary of Dublin’s opening championship fixture with Laois in Parnell Park.
“We’d know each other fairly well over the last number of years. There are also a few Clough-Ballacolla lads on the Laois team and within their set-up. We’d be pretty aware of their abilities and our abilities and it’s just about focusing on ourselves and what we can do. We also have to worry about shutting down their strengths but yeah, we know each other fairly well.”
He had been there in 2019 when Laois tore up all known precedent by winning the Tier 2 McDonagh Cup and a week later beating one of the established MacCarthy Cup sides on a memorably atmospheric afternoon.
Having done so well to qualify from Leinster in third place, Mattie Kenny’s team were turned over by two points. For Hayes it illustrates the truth that any team performing badly can be vulnerable to opponents playing out of their skins.
“I played that day. They were really on form and flying it and we were just a couple of per cent off. If your opponent is playing to the best of their ability and you’re a couple of per cent off they’ll punish you for it.
“The team was a little bit more unsettled. It’s been a couple of years since Mattie took over and the team is much more mature. There are steadier heads on shoulders these days. They just got the better of us that day; they had our number and really capitalised on it.”
It was a similar story last December when Clough-Ballacolla, who went into the Leinster semi-final as 3 to 1 outsiders, defeated Crokes. Hayes, whose display in the Dublin final – not least the 65th-minute goal that forced extra time – had been crucial to his club’s extra-time success against Na Fianna, again acknowledges they simply lost to a better team.
“On the night, Clough-Ballacolla were worth their win. They were a better team. There’s definitely a sense of disappointment that we didn’t show up as we thought we could and would. We were doing everything with the right intentions – working hard and trying to make the right decisions but our execution let us down and they punished us for that.”
Own approach
He thinks about the suggestion of complacency in relation to the 2019 match but rejects it. There had been speculation that Dublin had kept more of an eye on the potential All-Ireland quarter-final against Tipperary than on the Laois match.
Full back Eoghan O’Donnell missed the match with injury and there were suggestions that he was “being saved” for Tipperary.
“That [complacency] might be a bad word for it. The first 10 or 15 minutes we didn’t show up at the races. It wasn’t a matter of who the opponent was. It was more our own approach to it. If we were playing Kilkenny or Tipp or Cork on the day it wouldn’t have really mattered so I don’t think it was complacency. We just didn’t show up.
“You just focus on yourself on those big game days. For Eoghan himself, it’s managed so the physio and medical team will look after each player. I don’t think that was a case of resting a player. I think that was what was best for Eoghan and what he needed. His injury was serious enough for him not to play.”
He says that there is “a lot of confidence and enthusiasm” heading into the championship. Dublin beat Laois comfortably in the last match of the league down in Portlaoise and but for a poor outing against Kilkenny would have made the semi-finals.
They are also back in the format that delivered qualification from Leinster three years ago, the round-robin provincial series that had to be suspended during the pandemic.
“It’s great in terms that you can get a bit of momentum. It’s very much like the league where you can get a couple of results in a row and sort of build up a head of steam coming into the knockout stages but then, again, from a player’s point of view, knockout hurling is what you want to be playing.
“Round-robin does tend to get like that towards rounds three and four but yeah, it’s a great system and it definitely suits the championship as a whole.”
