Laois cry foul

There was apparently enough revenge, cries of betrayal and melodrama to engage a team of Jacobean playwrights at last weekend's Leinster GAA Convention. In the election for vice-chair - effectively the next chairman - Nicky Brennan, the well-known Kilkenny hurler, selector, manager, administrator and man of a thousand committees, won on the narrow margin of 47-44.

Defeated candidate Liam O'Neill of Laois was left pondering what might have been if even two votes had switched sides. Central to his angst was the block vote of the Dublin delegation. O'Neill and Dublin chairman John Egan are in the words of one close observer "lifelong buddies".

The Laois man accordingly dared to hope that the eight votes from the capital might be his. Instead Dublin didn't make up their minds until Saturday lunchtime and, despite Egan's promptings, pledged the lot to Brennan. After the count, O'Neill says he was told the vote was nothing personal but that after the Walsh Cup business, Dublin couldn't support him.

It will be remembered that Dublin and Laois had a feisty meeting in the Walsh Cup hurling semi-final in Abbeyleix which ended in the chambers of the Leinster Council last month with both counties fined and Laois removed from the final of the competition.

Such was the bitter fall-out from the whole business that one Dublin source conceded that it had been a factor in the decision taken to back Brennan. It was however strongly denied that the controversy had been the only consideration.

"Nicky has been very good to Dublin over the years, particularly in supporting hurling in the county and he has an excellent track record in administration," was the view advanced. "There was no decision taken until the Saturday so it was never a question of support being switched."

This week's Leinster Express's lavish coverage of the election outcome articulated the general outrage in Laois over the fate of O'Neill.

After all that disharmony, the mood of the convention was greatly lifted when incoming Leinster chairman Seamus Aldridge of Kildare sang part of his inaugural address to the tune of The Curragh of Kildare. Clearly delegates are in for a happy three years.