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Conor Burke and Davy Keogh celebrate after the game. Ryan Byrne/INPHO
moved on

'You can't stay looking backwards the whole time' - revenge not on Dublin minds against Laois

The Sky Blues defeated Laois 15 months after they suffered a shock reversal in Portlaoise.

BOTH EDDIE BRENNAN and Mattie Kenny had to endure Covid-19 related headaches as they prepared their teams for last night’s Leinster SHC quarter-final.  

Kenny’s preparations were disrupted when Dublin moved into Level 3 restrictions a few weeks back, which effectively pulled the plug on a number of challenge games he had arranged with other counties.  

Brennan’s major issues were more recent as a pair of Laois players were deemed to have been close contacts to a positive test, resulting on them missing the championship opener which they lost by 3-21 to 0-23. 

“It’s tricky,” said the Laois boss of the build-up to the game. “Three weeks ago, we got the green light in the club situation, the county final went below (called off) and we had three weeks to work with them.  

“We played two matches in that time and you’re just trying to get them up to match speed, and it can be difficult to get that from internal matches. You need to be playing top opposition to get up to that level. It’s a narrow window but it’s the same for everyone.  

“You make do, drive on, and make the best of it. We have two, maybe three weeks and we drive on. The process is the same, we see where we can improve and prepare for whoever is coming down the line.” 

Kenny’s side looked impressive, particularly in front of the posts, but he found it hard to gauge their form lines heading into the game as they were forced to stick with in-house matches. 

“You have to put it in context and the context is it’s the first competitive game we’ve played since February so there’s always going to be a few little things that we’ll be a bit rusty at.  

“The challenge for a lot of the teams is on your first day out, not knowing fully what to expect. We had a couple of challenge games organised that fell through because when Dublin went into Level 3 the games we were going to play didn’t go ahead.  

“So we hadn’t got a challenge game with any other county in the run-up to this. We were relying on competitive in-house games so we were always a little bit apprehensive with what we were benchmarking it against to say whether you were going well or not. 

“To get that 70 plus minutes under the belt tonight, we’re delighted.” 

It was their first championship game in 15 months – when they were shocked by Laois in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final. That game was spoken about in the media in the build-up to this game, but Kenny played down its significance afterwards.

“You can’t stay looking backwards the whole time. I was hugely frustrated but it’s probably the media that gets hung up on the past occurrences than management teams themselves.  

“You’re always looking at the next training session or game. What’s behind you is behind you and you’ve just got to learn whatever lessons that come out of it and move on.  

“Last year were we disappointed? We were very disappointed, bitterly disappointed over our performances that day and we went to dust ourselves down and go again and look forward to 2020.  

“There were times that there were concerns or doubts that this championship would ever go ahead so we were all just delighted to be back hurling.” 

Donal Burke sang from a different hymn sheet in his post-match interview with Sky Sports, declaring: “We came out with that with that (last year’s game) in the back of our minds. We wanted a bit of revenge for last year. We didn’t do ourselves justice.”

mattie-kenny Dublin manager Mattie Kenny. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

He opted off the squad and spent the summer in New York, but is a huge addition for Kenny this year as evidenced by the 1-16 he shot in the championship opener.

“Donal has been a great player since he was 16, 17. Played really well for Dublin minors and U21s,” said his manager.

“He was always a great talent coming through and we in Dublin were delighted this evening to see him doing it out there at senior level. He’s a very, very skilful player, a great striker of the ball and in fairness to the young lad he got some lovely scores there tonight. ”

Kenny hopes to have forwards Paul Ryan, David Treacy and Conal Keaney available for selection next weekend when they face Kilkenny in the semi-final. Ryan and Treacy are dealing with groin strains while Keaney is still recovering from a ‘couple of little knocks’ he picked up during the club campaign.  

Dublin were not the only ones to be dealing with injuries to key players. Like Dublin, Laois had just eight of their starting team from their previous championship encounter in Portlaoise.  

They were able to summon Jack Kelly and Mark Kavanagh off the bench, but Matthew Whelan, Joe Phelan, John Lennon, Eanna Lyons and Cha Dwyer played no part.  

“I think the physios did some job to get him ready and it was a miracle he was ready for tonight,” Brennan said about Kavanagh who was introduced at half-time.

“He’s committed to the cause. We have two or three other lads nursing injuries and we’ll see how they are. By the nature of it, lads will be out and others will have to step in. It’s character-building, it’s how good are the group going to respond, how together are we? 

“Team sport by its nature is that, you stick together and you kick on and we take the positives and say ‘at times we punched hard out there, we played well’ but you have to be able to sustain that, and that’s the target. Unfortunately tonight, Dublin’s fitness and conditioning and bit of drive in them is what got them home. I’d be very proud of the lads and how they applied themselves.” 

Laois will return to action in a couple of weeks in the backdoor system and Brennan challenged his players to “push for those extra gains” before their next game. 

“Unfortunately with matches, we often see that — the scoreline doesn’t lie at times. We were well beaten and it’s about what we do next. That’s the process. When you’re trying to make that step up, we have to look at it… it was much talked about it, but that was last year, we’re up at the highest level so you have to go out of your comfort zone yet again. 

” You have to go that extra yard, push for those extra gains. It’s like an athletics runner getting down to a certain time on a mile — to get that last few little bits is the difference. The quality opposition, there’s only little bits between them and that’s where it’s at.  

“You can make big gains at the start, and then it’s the little gains — where you’re willing to go to look for those additional bits. That’s what it is for us, we ave to rill up our sleeves and get ready for the next day.”

Finally, Kenny praised the protocols that allowed the game be played in a safe manner. 

“Coming into Croke Park tonight to play the first round of championship, what more would you want to be doing on a Saturday evening,” he said.

“We’re just delighted to be here and back hurling. The GPA and GAA have put in really good protocols now and it’s been done very, very safely. So let’s hope it continues.”

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