Not fond of crowds? Then go watch Laois hurl

For those of you who enjoy plenty of elbow room in stadiums, so you can give charade styled advice to players, then following a Laois hurling team will be right up your alley.

Traditionally, we draw poor crowds on the hurling front, it’s a well-known fact.  We travel in especially small packs, but the O’Moore representation in Wexford Park was for this spectator even more distressing than the results from both senior and u21 matches in recent weeks.  

      

For one second, forget about the score line in Wexford Park. Forget about the unfavourable odds against the team going into the game. Forget about the trouncing the Model u-21s gave a minor All Ireland winning Kilkenny the week previous. Cast aside the fact that many still suffered from the Rebel hangover. 

Strip all contexts away from the event, brass tax. This was a Leinster semi-final, and nobody showed up to support the team. 

In a round robin competition where the favourites had been eliminated, we couldn’t muster up any more than 30 blue shirts. This panel were 70minutes away from getting to the county’s first u21 Leinster final in 21 years, yet nobody cared.

You can be sure had the u21 footballers of this county emerged from the Westmeath game victorious, their supporters would have made the trip down the Carlow road to Wexford, yet they had no partisan following either. Was the Thomastown road that leads the hurling side of Laois to the sunny south east to just winding?

   

How can we expect anything more of our inter-county teams with such blatant disregard for them? It must have been near impossible for the Laois players to conjure up any screed of confidence when moments like Brendan Reddin’s brilliant mazing run and point in the first half receive muted applause? Compare that to a Wexford player being greeted with rapturous cheers for a simple challenge and we already have a severe handicap before ever a ball is pucked. The Wexford support was incredible, certainly more than anything that will attend our ‘glorious’ club championship final.

The paltry following has nothing to do with ticket prices, or generic recession jargon. Laois’ hurling problems run far deeper than attendances I know, but by the time this goes to press those in the national media will have magnified our flaws times one hundred, with plans even for a Committee Room special report of the ‘state’ of Laois hurling. For lack of a Limerick issue this year I suppose.

 It’s a simple matter of interest, pride in one’s county and creating atmosphere for whatever 15 players line out in blue and white. Where was everybody?