'There’s no stone being left unturned'- Laois hurling manager Willie Maher

Laois’ season will begin on Thursday, January 4 with a game against nearest neighbours Offaly in the opening game in the Walsh Cup. They’re joined in the group by Galway with Laois set to travel to Ballinasloe depending on the Offaly result, a loss will mean a game on Sunday, January 7 while a win sets up a tie on the following Sunday, December 14.

"The lads are working hard in fairness and it’s been unbelievably positive in the last while with the lads getting a bit of training done. We’re in a good place for the turn of the year. 

"There’s nothing like an Offaly game for a Laois team to focus the mind, we’ll be going all guns blazing. It’s in Ballacolla and we got a good bounce off playing in club pitches last year. The players are chomping at the bit to get at Offaly," Maher said.

Maher has a big advantage heading into the 2024 season as he’s now got a full club championship under his belt and has a better knowledge of the players at his disposal.

“We have a panel of 42 at the moment which will be cut to 36. We are happy with the level of commitment from players. We also opened it up five or six weeks ago through the Laois GAA Secretary Niall Handy where we sent letters to Junior and Intermediate clubs. We basically said look if you have anyone you feel would be worth giving an opportunity to. We gave 10 lads an opportunity to come in for four or five weeks and trial so we’ve looked at a lot of players. We’re very happy with where we are and there’ll be tough decisions to be made in the next week with the panel being reduced to 36," Maher said.

The return of Clough-Ballacolla’s Lee Cleere is a big plus for Laois with the full-back having been part of the Clough-Ballacolla team which captured three successive Bob O’Keeffe Cups in 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was also a member of the Laois team in 2019 when Laois lifted the Joe McDonagh Cup.

"Everyone has committed that committed last year. We have a few new players with Lee Cleere, who was in Australia, Tom and Cathal Cuddy, Cody Comerford and Jer Quinlan. David Dooley has committed fully to Laois having been involved with Leinster Rugby for the last couple of years. It’s a competitive panel and we’ve been working hard the last few weeks to give ourselves a platform after Christmas.

"It’s a case of trying to get lads up to the required fitness levels and we have worked very hard on that pre-Christmas. We’re happy with the level of commitment and the boys can see something in the way we’ve been training in the last while which has given us huge momentum and hopefully that’ll carry over after Christmas," Maher added.

The Laois panel features a selection of players that gave Laois fans a memorable occasion in May 2022 where they reached the Leinster final with Maher saying that the future looks bright for Laois.

“The five or six lads I named already and there’s a couple more as well, they’re young 19-20 year olds of really high quality. That was proven in 2022 when they got to the Leinster Minor final in Portlaoise and lost to a good Offaly team. 

“There are a lot of quality young players in Laois and we’re delighted to have them on board and I can see that they’re starting to make their mark in training. They probably all won’t be ready for Joe McDonagh but they’re giving us huge hunger and appetite for work in the panel. These guys have no fear with their youthfulness so we’re really happy. They’re adding significantly to the panel and there’s been a noticeable increase in the quality of players we have this year and those guys are driving that”, Maher said.

Finally, Maher says that everything will be done to make sure that Laois fans have something to celebrate come the end of the 2024 season.

“Our main priority is to win matches in the league. We got no momentum last year, the management only came in November/ December and going straight into the Walsh Cup and Division 1, it was very difficult in regards to blooding players. It also negated any chance we had of gaining momentum going into the Joe McDonagh. 

“This year’s league we'll be going hard to get back up, it was very disappointing to get relegated. With those new players and the aforementioned experienced players, we want to have a really good league this year. There’s no stone being left unturned to get Laois back ultimately to where we want to go, out of Division 2 and win the Joe McDonagh”, he said.