In January we looked back at Laois’s O’Byrne Cup success of 30 years ago.
While the O’Byrne Cup has always been a secondary competition, it has given Laois a handful of decent days out over the years.
Laois have won it five times: 1978, 1987, 1991, 1994 and 2005.
The 2005 final was played in front of more than 14,000 in Cusack Park in Mullingar as the box office appeal of Mick O’Dwyer and Paidi O Sé meant that Laois and Westmeath, even with what essentially amounted to second-string teams, were still a big deal.
But in terms of standout memories, Laois’s 1994 success takes some beating.
In what was the first season of Colm Browne’s first spell as Laois manager, Laois won all round them across that winter and spring.
Playing in Division 2 of the National League, they won six of their seven games to win promotion – beating Meath, Cork, Galway, Roscommon, Louth and Fermanagh. Their only game to lose was to a Leitrim side under John O’Mahony who would go on to win the 1994 Connacht title.
There was also an All Ireland ‘B’ championship, overlapping with the phase of the league that was played before Christmas. Laois won that, beating Sligo in the final.
And the O’Byrne Cup overlapped with the league in the spring, where Laois beat Westmeath, Longford and Dublin to qualify for the final.
The Dublin game in January in Portlaoise was particularly eventful. Dublin were a big deal: All Ireland finalists in 1992, and semi-finalists in 1993. And for the O’Byrne Cup clash with Laois, they weren’t long back from a team holiday in Florida.
After five minutes, an unholy 28-man free-for-all broke out in front of the old O’Moore Park stand, many of those involved being subs from the two teams. There was nobody booked or sent off and moments after it had all died down, Mick Lawlor buried a goal.
In the end Laois won 1-12 to 0-6 and the big crowd in O’Moore Park gave the Laois players a standing ovation off the pitch at the final whistle.
“28 player punch up,” was the Irish Independent teaser on its front page the following day.
“The Portlaoise contest was only four minutes old when an ugly free-for-all erupted near the centre of the field, and it was almost a minute before referee Noel Whelan was able to restore order,” wrote Paddy Hickey in the piece that appeared on the front of paper’s sports section.
“The trouble broke out following a physical exchange between Laois midfielder Tony Maher and Dublin’s Shay Keogh. Within a few seconds a host of players were wading into each other with a degree of ferocity.”
In the end, Tony Maher and Liam Ramsbottom were suspended from Laois as well as Ger Regan from Dublin.
In addition both counties were fined £1,000 and the whole saga caused serious unrest in Dublin, documented day after day in the newspapers with the crux of the issue focusing on a Dublin official who gave the video of the game over to the Leinster Council.
The St Vincent’s club even pulled their players from Dublin training for a while and the suggestion was that a side deal was done that saw no high-profile Dublin players suspended in return for the video recording!
In the meantime, Laois marched on to a semi-final meeting with Longford, where the win set up another meeting with Meath.
And the final was played after the end of the regular stage of the league and before the quarter-final.
Again played in O’Moore Park, in front of a crowd of 4,000, Laois won 3-9 to 1-11 in a thriller of a game, one decided late on thanks to a bravely punched goal from Colm Maher from Portarlington, a young man who would tragically lose his life in a house fire two years later.
It was a game Mick Lawlor top-scored in with 2-4 against a strong Meath side but one that was still down the services of the likes of Colm O’Rourke and Brian Stafford, though Laois were also without suspended Stradbally duo Tony Maher and Damien Delaney.
Laois would later go on to beat 1992 All Ireland champions Donegal in the league quarter-final in Croke Park before losing the semi-final.
In the Leinster championship, they had 17 points to spare over Longford before losing to Meath by four points in a packed Pairc Tailteann in Navan. And with no back door, that was that. The season was over.
But it was a campaign that gave plenty of entertainment, an All Ireland ‘B’, an O’Byrne Cup and promotion to Division 1.
SCORERS – Laois: Mick Lawlor 2-4 (0-3 frees), Colm Maher 1-1, Liam O’Connor, George Doyle, Denis Lalor and Leo Turley 0-1 each. Meath: Trevor Giles 1-5 (1-0 penalty, 0-2 frees), Tommy Dowd 0-4 (one free), Colm Brady and Jody Devine 0-1 each
LAOIS: Tony McMahon (Ballyroan); Tommy Smith (Portarlington), Martin Dempsey (St Joseph’s), Tommy Conroy (Portlaoise); Aidan Lacey (St Joseph’s), Denis Lalor (The Heath), Eamon Lacey (Ballylinan); Pat Roe (The Heath), George Doyle (Courtwood); Liam O’Connor (Graiguecullen), Hughie Emerson (Portarlington), Mick Lawlor (Emo); Colm Maher (Portarlington), Tom Bowe (Stradbally), Leo Turley (O’Dempsey’s).
MEATH: Conor Martin; Robbie O’Malley, Vincent Ryan, Martin O’Connell; Brendan O’Reilly, Cormac Murphy, Tom Hanly; Jimmy McGuinness, Sean Kelly; Neville Dunne, Colm Brady, Trevor Giles; Michael McDonald, Tommy Dowd, Jody Devine. Subs: Graham Geraghty for McDonald, John McDermott for Kelly, PJ Gillick for Devine
SEE ALSO – Check out all our top stories from our 2024 Remembered series here
