Laois Camogie determined to bounce back after finals heartbreak in 2024

After a weekend which saw all three Laois sides record victories, the final inter-county team returns to action with Pat Collier and Rob Jones’ Laois Camogie team set to get their league campaign underway against Kildare.

Joint managers Pat Collier and Rob Jones both spoke to the Leinster Express/ Laois Live ahead of the Very Camogie Leagues getting underway.

Laois haven’t had much time on the field ahead of the start of the league but Collier and Jones don’t feel it’s needed with their primary focus on S&C since the girls came back into the setup.

"We're going through a gym session block there now since the start of January and we'll be continuing it on into the league campaign. Not much hurling work is done at the minute. We've only got three ball sessions in so far and so that'll be it before our first league match on Saturday. Last year, we just did a small bit of S&C at the start and it kind of faded away so this year we have a plan in place that will keep that going forward and that was something the girls wanted as well so look, anything to try and improve from last year. We always listen to what the girls say and we try and give them what they want so that's what we're doing this year," Jones said.

"We're not that long back, I think this will be our third week back. Last year, we would have missed out on a lot of strength and conditioning. We're sort of concentrating on that this year for maybe the first ten weeks, more so than anything else. We were just chatting the other night, myself and Rob there, and you'd even notice it in the girls. We have Joe Smyth, who's our strength and conditioning coach from Tullamore, he was with Connacht Rugby. He’s very, very thorough in his job. We've even noticed the difference in some of the girls. They did their own work in November and December. They're certainly starting to look stronger. Last year I felt, we maybe fell short on that at the end of the year. We got tired, especially in the last 10 minutes of the All-Ireland final," Collier said.

The Laois Camogie panel is smaller than it was last year with some players opting out and some of them travelling for the summer which came as a surprise to the joint managers. 

"Our panel is smaller than last year, surprisingly. We had 32 last year, we have 26 this year so maybe in hindsight, it's a good thing because it's hard to keep players happy and for whatever reason some of them decided not to come back which was a bit of a surprise. You'd be imagining that they'd be mad to come back to try and improve their points and whatever but unfortunately that's not the case. But look, we have a good few young girls coming in and we have five Laois Minors on the panel this year included in our 26 so that leaves us with 21 for the league so it's going to be tight enough for numbers. But as I say, these girls that are in now are hungry, they want success and we lost three finals last year so they're going to do their best to try and win three this year.

"We have 11 girls back that started the All-Ireland final and four girls that are not. Two of the girls are Aoife Finlay and Jade Bergin, they're heading away. They're travelling for the summer so they'll be out for 3 months so they didn't think it was fair to commit. That's fair enough, look, they have their own plans and you can't interrupt anything like that. Aisling O’Dea suffered an injury during her Leinster campaign with Brigid’s so she's kind of doubtful whether she'll make a return to Camogie in the near future. She has a slight tear on some part of her knee muscle. Then there's a good few of our girls that didn't start, not coming back, not committing for whatever reason. Look, there could be many reasons I suppose. A lot of these girls are used to starting with their club teams and when you come into a county set up it's maybe a bit of a shock to them and they're not getting as much game time as they want. In hindsight when we thought it was good to have the 32 on a panel, maybe it was a bad thing. I don't know, it's just you have nearly 2 teams with only places for 15 and maybe that's the reason they're just frustrated that they didn't get game time. All we can do is move forward, we can't pressure them into coming back. There's no red carpet going to be rolled out for anyone. The girls that came in that we asked are very eager to come in and very committed so that's what we want," Jones added.

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"You know yourself now and no disrespect to girls or lads with college nowadays for these kids and pressure for exams and then trying to maybe work at the weekends to have a few bob to live, not every mammy and daddy looks after all that. I have full respect for the decisions those girls made that couldn't come back and I'll always have a place for them in my heart the way they performed for me last year. We have to move on with what we have this year and I have full respect for the girls that have come in. I think we asked 53, just so people realise, I think we got 26 so it's a huge turnaround from last year. I'd say it's the same in most counties with both lads and girls that are in college, it's tough going for them. We’ve released the college girls and we don't expect to see them at all during the week. They're playing with their college and the college season is over now but to get girls to travel up on a Wednesday night to train, it's not easy," Collier commented.

Camross native Collier feels that the Camogie Association needs to do more for the players who are in college during the week and have to travel home to train with their county team. He doesn’t feel that the expenses they get are justified for the amount of time and effort that inter-county Camogie players put in. 

"The expenses they got last year, I mean, didn't half cover what it cost them. The expenses are ridiculous in the Camogie. The lads get twice as much, it's all down to who you are again. The Camogie Association needs to have a serious look at themselves. The time the girls put in last year was anything on up to 20, 25 hours a week and it's not doable to be fair. You have to give huge credit to those girls for giving that commitment and I'd just love to see them win one final this year out of the three tournaments that they’ll play in just to get that bit of silverware. Laois Camogie is on the up, there's huge work being done with our Minors and U-16s and has been for the last four or five years. We have a very strong core on this team. I think that the average age would be maybe 20 or 21. I'd be expecting to win something this year or I'd be very disappointed if we don't," Collier added. 

Laois had a superb year in 2024 reaching the final of all three competitions that they played in but unfortunately, they lost all three finals by a single point. Both Collier and Jones are hoping that their side can at least get back to Croke Park and overturn the result from August’s All-Ireland final against Tipperary.

"We're in three competitions this year. Our goal is to try and win the three but you always can't look too far ahead. We'll just concentrate now on the league. We have a good chance of getting into a final. I think it's the top two who go straight into a final so that's what we'll be focusing on from the start," Jones said.

"I'd be expecting to win something this year or I'd be very disappointed if we don't. We're concentrating on the league we want to get a good run in it, but we will be tight on numbers.

Our big goal is to get back to Croke Park on the All-Ireland final day, that's number one, and try and overturn that result. That's what we're gearing for now, onwards and upwards," Collier added.

Laois will welcome Kildare to Mountmellick on Saturday, February 22 from 2pm in the opening game of Division 3A.

"Kildare dropped down from Intermediate into this league, which means they’ll probably be one of the best in it. A local man is over Kildare this year, David O'Mahoney of Portlaoise and a former Laois hurler. They've played three or four practice matches already and I believe he's got back a lot of the Naas players. Naas were hugely competitive in the Leinster Championship last year. If the Naas girls are back, they're going to be a huge ask for us next week because we will be short, six or seven, et cetera. That's no excuse. We'll be there and we'll be giving it everything. We'll be concentrating, we want to get a run in this league. It's hugely important to start as you mean to go on so we'll be competitive," Collier ended.