"We’ll be ready to go for February the fifth against Tipperary” - 'Cheddar Plunkett'

Seamus ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett is in his second spell as Laois senior hurling manager and his side began 2022 with a Walsh Cup match-up against Wexford. While Plunkett’s charges fell to an eleven-point defeat, the Laois manager will be glad that his team has dusted off the cobwebs in preparation for the opening round of the league in the first week of February.

Speaking after the game in Rathdowney, Plunkett commended the effort of his panel.

“I think we were rusty, a little bit, in our hurling today. There were some reasons for that. I think we probably conceded a lot of ball. We just got turned over a lot, and a lot of scores came from that.”

“I thought the level of effort from the players was good. All teams, including ourselves, are in a sort of heavy block of training now, and probably all teams are being hit hard by Covid. I know we were for the last fortnight as well.”

“This is what Walsh Cup games are for, just getting matches under your belt, getting games into players, finding out your team. We’ll be ready to go for February the fifth against Tipperary.”

There were plenty of fresh faces on the scene for Laois, with Frank Flanagan, Liam O’Connell, Aidan Corby, Ben Conroy, and Ciaran Byrne all starting, while Cathal Dunne, Seamus Fitzpatrick, Padraic Dunne, Jordan Walshe, and Ciaran Conroy all made appearances off the bench.

“We’ll be looking for all the players, not just necessarily one player. We need our whole panel raising their game. We made a lot of changes at half-time. That’s what today is about. Playing the whole panel, giving opportunities to players.”

“Some players are new and young coming on to the panel. They’ve got to learn the pace of the game. You have to give a bit of time and a bit of patience to players like that to find their feet here and be positive with them.”

“The people that are here on the field have got to produce the goods and work towards that. We’re going into every game here to go and win matches. If we’ve injuries, we’ll deal with that. Every team deals with them.”

Wexford the masters as Laois hurlers open 2022 with defeat

Professional soccer and rugby outfits have struggled to deal with outbreaks of cases within their camps, and there’s a strong chance that the GAA will have to deal with similar issues in the upcoming months. However, Plunkett believes the GAA has done a good job thus far with regard to the pandemic.

“If you wanted to look at the worst-case scenario, you see professional outfits in rugby and in soccer not being able to deal with this. If it hits the GAA, it’s going to be the same. You have got to give a lot of credit to the GAA in the last twelve months, last eighteen months. Their ability to look after their own community has been brilliant, and I don’t see that changing. I think that’s the priority the GAA will look at. “

“Let’s look positively on that. If we get league games like that across the country in hurling, wouldn’t it be great for a lot of people to go to a match in good conditions like this out in the open? They’ll have something else to talk about other than the pandemic.”