ALLIANZ NHL DIVISION TWO: TOM HUMPHRIESreports on how, thanks to the dedicated efforts of a determined group of people, hurling in one of Leinster's unsung counties is firmly on an upward curve

IT WAS one of those landmarks which any team on the road to somewhere must pass. And in passing, they must keep the gaze ahead. Keep marching and not make too much of it. Still, a landmark it was and in years to come if they reach the promised land, or any place close to it, they will look back on Wexford and grin to themselves.

You know the details by now. Beaten by Wexford in 2009. Beat Wexford in 2010. More precisely, beaten out the gate and down the road by Wexford in 2009. Twenty-five points. It rained goals for the Yellowbellies – 25 points against a side stalled in Division Two. Twenty-five points. A grand canyon of hopelessness across which Carlow viewed the hurling world.

A year on, Carlow took Wexford by three points and it should have been more. Then went down to a resurgent Clare and lost by just a point last week.

If it weren’t for a frustrating couple of points dropped against Antrim on opening day and that unfortunate squeaker to Clare, they wouldn’t be hanging on to their transistor radios tomorrow waiting for news from Laois and Wexford.

Still they see the sweet symmetry in the situation and again it describes progress. Last year when they were thumped by Wexford, the defeat gently put to sleep Carlow’s chances of making the Division Two play-offs.

This year, if Wexford drop a point in their last two games and Carlow beat Kildare tomorrow it comes down to Carlow playing Laois on the last day of the league for the right to play in the Division Two final. Having beaten Wexford already they would proceed to the final even if the two counties finish on the same points.

Novel perhaps, but not a novelty.

The seriousness of Carlow hurling seeps out in every conversation you have with hurling people there.

Kevin Ryan is the Waterford man who came in to lend a hand in the gentle revolution that is Carlow hurling. He has pedigree. A Mount Sion man, a former Waterford player, he put in his time under Justin McCarthy and then managing Oulart-the-Ballagh in Wexford. He doesn’t do dizzy.

“I suppose to a lot of people the Wexford game was a huge deal. For ourselves on the day, we didn’t meet our own targets in terms of performance and in the big scheme of things it was just a step along the way we are going.

“I’ve said before that we were actually happier with the Down game earlier. We battled for the win up there. We said afterwards that on other days we wouldn’t have come out of there with a win. Coming home that night, we had met our targets in terms of points and performance.”

The hurling heartlands of Carlow are in the south, on the borders with Kilkenny and Wexford, a mixed blessing for the game in the past in that the proximity to the super powers provoked a lot of forelock-tugging amongst the humble natives whom, if they ever dreamed, seldom articulated those dreams.

When Kevin Ryan came across from Waterford though, to speak about the management job, he found that the impression he had formed viewing from the outside for the previous 10 years was correct.

“I didn’t take a lot into consideration when I met them. I knew they were a serious hurling county and doing a lot of work. There had been some minor and under-21 success which I had watched and they had won the Ring Cup the year before. The lads that interviewed me were serious, serious hurling men in a serious county. I knew they would do what had to be done to progress.”

Ryan didn’t sweep in as a saviour. He came to lend a shoulder to a work in progress. He speaks about some of the mentors he deals with at under-21 for instance. Just talking to them, listening to their encyclopaedic knowledge of players and matches tells Ryan all he needs to know about the amount of work that has been done over the last decade with Carlow teams from under-14 up.

“They have a core group of people who are very serious about hurling. Those people have been driving Carlow hurling on for some time now.”

You look back and you can see the shoots peeping above the ground. Four All-Ireland minor B championships in a row around the turn of the century suggested a county outgrowing its own humility. In 2006, Carlow made it to the Leinster minor final, beating Offaly and Wexford on the way. Kilkenny suffocated them in the final, but, that same year, Pres-De La Salle in Mhuine Bheag reached the All-Ireland Colleges’ B final.

Eoin Garvey of Clare was the man was in charge of the school team and his stint in control of the county seniors is seen as a groundbreaking time in terms of development.

Garvey took Carlow to the Christy Ring final in 2006 where they were hammered badly by Antrim, but the momentum never altered. Garvey was succeeded by John Greene who in his turn took the county to the first of their Christy Ring titles in 2008.

They retained that trophy last year under Ryan, but, by then, were already looking toward the next challenge.

Not looking back in either anger or pride has become a feature of Carlow’s drive. Last year they were intent on retaining their Division Two status; they did so, but the hammering to Wexford took the good out of it. This year their sights are raised a little higher again.

Is there a limit to how far a small county can go? “As a board they are still looking at what can be done at underage in Carlow,” says Kevin Ryan “and they are putting a huge amount of resource and effort into that. I think the present seniors and under-21s can make more progress.

“In two years I would feel they could be serious competitors with the bottom end of Division One. Whether that can be sustained or built on depends on under- 16 and minor level now. There are prospects there, but maybe not as much as with the under-21 team coming through at the moment. For now, though, there is more progress to be made at senior level in the next couple of years and more players to come through beyond that.”

David O’Brien works as a selector with the county minors and serves as the county PRO. He has seen the painstaking progress and believes the appetite is there for more hard work.

“What we have now is a result of continuous work for 10 years. When we got to the Leinster minor final four years ago in hurling that didn’t come out of the blue. We have been developing underage teams and development squads for a dozen years.

“If you call it a breakthrough it is the result of a lot of years of hard work in a county where heartbreak is a regular occurrence. The people involved have stuck with it and will keep at it.”

O’Brien points out that being a county with small playing resources forces one into making a decision. Carlow have just seven senior clubs (Naomh Eoin- Misheal, Mount Leinster Rangers, from Borris-Ballymurphy, St Mullins, Ballinkillen, Erin’s Own, from Bagenalstown, Carlow Town and Naomh Bríd, from Leighlinbridge) plus two intermediate clubs who play in a league with the B teams from the senior sides.

The population even in a county which could be a dormitory has peaked for now at just over 50,000. As such, not many prospects slip through the net. Carlow can’t afford that.

“We had 70 out for minor trials this year and wound up with a panel of about 33 or 34,” says David O’Brien. “That’s good in a county this size which is divided roughly north and south with the north liking the football more.

“Anybody involved in Carlow hurling though knows who the players are that are coming through. You watch them in leagues and championships from the time they start off. Everybody involved knows everybody that is playing. If a manager is putting a squad together, four or five phone calls will put the whole thing together for him.”

The game is growing slowly. The schools scene is improving and last year St Patrick’s, Tullow, won the Junior championship, their first silverware since the mid-1970s reviving hopes of a revival there.

The county’s volunteer network is buttressed by three full-time coaches, all familiar names to followers of the game there – Brendan Hayden, Johnny Nevin and Veronica Crane. Little shoots are everywhere now.

“We work on them at all levels to improve diet, fitness, technique and the way they think,” says O’Brien.

The way they think?

“They are starting to know and to believe that it is an honour, a matter of pride, to be wearing the county jersey, that wearing Carlow’s colours is as meaningful as wearing the colours of any other place. It is huge.”

And the way the seniors think is being changed too. Ryan has enlisted the services of his old friend, Gerry Fitzpatrick, and the players see the country ahead and the road behind in different terms now. Ryan and Fitzpatrick soldiered together in the Waterford backroom for many years and the chance to work together again appealed to both men. Fitzpatrick’s skills of mental preparation dovetail nicely with Ryan’s obsession with performance levels.

A defeat can sometimes offer more positives than a win if certain indicators are present. That is why Carlow spent little time mourning the loss of those league points in Casement Park at the start of the campaign. They knew they played well. They spent just as little time celebrating the win over Wexford. They knew they could have played better.

“The first night I came here 13 players turned up for a meeting,” says Ryan. “I just knew that couldn’t be the true picture, but it was frustrating and worrying all the same. Within a couple of nights there was a good core.

“There were other influences at that stage which contributed to that first night, but it is totally different, now we work as a serious hurling county.”

Carlow view themselves that way and he senses the rest of the hurling world is beginning to accept their credentials also.

“There is not really a snobbery there. There is a mindset perhaps that what is, will always be, that the top eight or 10 teams will always be the top eight or 10 teams, but they know now that the likes of Carlow and Kildare and Laois are working very hard to break in there. So a lot of teams willingly accommodate us with challenges. Waterford, Limerick, Dublin and others have played us.

“If that old snobbery was there they wouldn’t waste their time. There is a mindset among the general public in some counties that what is, will always be. We don’t see it that way at all.”

For now, the mindset is very simple. They have to focus on beating Kildare. Have to see if Wexford stumble against Laois. The next game is always the biggest challenge.

“If we are not up for that we are in serious trouble. I know Kildare are waiting in the long grass for us. Belief will come in time. Success will come in time. Getting consistency first is the challenge.”

This month they tussle in a tough league where they have proved themselves to be the match for anybody. Division One is still a possibility.

And next month they play Laois again in the foothills of the Leinster Championship. Victory would ensure them game time with Dublin.

No point even thinking of it. Each successive performance between now and then is all that matters. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

And continues that way.