Micko sticks to positive line

LEINSTER SFC FIRST ROUND:AT 74 years of age, Mick O'Dwyer's unquenchable appetite for championship football continues, as does his ability to throw out some great lines. Asked what he thought of the yellow-card fest here in Portlaoise he threw his eyes up to heaven and described it as "crazy stuff".

The man calls it as he sees it.

“When they keep changing the rules you’re going to have all these things. Sure it’s crazy stuff, what they’re at. They should let the game alone. It’s going fine. They want to change and change again and it’s making it tough for the referees more than anything,” he added.

As for the football, O’Dwyer was more typically cautious in predicting any great things for Wicklow this summer – even thought there was plenty to be optimistic about after this.

“They’re not quite ready yet but they’re improving,” he reckoned. “They played well, the fitness was good. They played a good combining game, especially when it was 14 against 15 for quite a long while. We held the ball well and we moved the ball pretty well. Overall, yes, it was a very good display but it was only a game won in the championship. There’s a long way to go but it’s good to get over the first round.

“We didn’t give too much consideration to Carlow to be very honest. You don’t look at the other team and think about what the other team are going to do. What I do always is positive thinking. I get my own team to play my way and let the other team try to counteract that . . .

“But we will have to improve again for Westmeath. We’ll be hoping too the game is in Portlaoise which is a neutral venue. They took us away up to Tullamore last year.

“I mean asking people from Bray and Greystones and Arklow to travel over 100 miles to a venue whereas Westmeath can only walk down the road to it is all wrong. A neutral venue, that’s all we’re asking for. We’re asking for no more.”

Carlow manager Luke Dempsey was equally bemused by the amount of bookings and also reckoned all the rule changes didn’t help.

“They keep bandying about these new rules, and from the very start, it was a like a lottery out there. You didn’t know when the ball was going to be thrown up, or a free for an under-hand pass. I mean the first Wicklow goal was clearly one of the throws. And the man overcarried it.

“Having said that, it’s not the reason we lost. It’s just the referee was very, very frustrating. You couldn’t get a run at it, with Wicklow’s incessant fouling.

“Maybe that’s why we need to get a run at it during the summer, to become more professional, in terms of knowing what referees are going to do. But it really suited their style of play. Not-stop fouling, with very little punishment for it.

“But really when they got the second goal, last summer really kicked in. That was the difference. They just pulled away. Their free-taker was scoring, ours wasn’t. Their shots were going over. Ours weren’t. They had to work less hard for their scores. And thus we lost . . . But it’s a matter now of trying to pick this up.”