THE last training session before tonight’s Qualifier against Monaghan is over.
With the sun setting behind him, Carlow skipper Darragh Foley pulls the players and management into a huddle.
“It’s an honour going on to the field with every single one of the men in this circle,” he says.
“An absolute f***in’ honour.
“We spoke at the start of the year about the journey we’re on and the journey doesn’t end on Saturday boys, not on our home patch.
“Let’s go at these boys and take a big scalp.”
Bring it on.
Foley’s rousing words were the final act of a memorable, access-all-areas day at Dr Cullen Park.
Hours earlier, groundsman Tommy Ramsbottom was the first smiling face to greet me.
With the walls painted and the grass trimmed, the stadium looks immaculate and as we chat a strimmer hums in the background while a Sky Sports construction crew assembles camera gantries and a studio.
“Ah, it’s a pity there wasn’t another week’s rain,” says Tommy as he looks over the billiard table pitch.
“The grass would have been far greener, but sure it’s nearly burnt with the sun now. But, Jaysus, Carlow playing in July? It’s a long time since that happened!”
Steven Poacher arrives a little while later. The former Down U21 coach was brought into the Carlow set-up by manager Turlough O’Brien last year and the Mourne county’s loss has been the Barrowsiders’ gain.
They love the Ballyholland man down here. Somehow he crams motivation, instruction and humour into the same sentence when he talks to the players and they’ll need his innovation and passion tonight against a Monaghan side that will take the field as overwhelming favourites.
Of course Carlow are well used to being underdogs. They were the (italics) Championship whipping boys before O’Brien took over and began their transformation from glaring evidence of the need for a two-tier Championship to an exhibit in the case against it.
Following a successful spell with the Eire Og club, ‘Turlo’ was handed the Carlow reins after several managers from outside the county had come and gone without making an impression.
He wasn’t in the job long when a native approached him and selector Tommy Wogan and congratulated them on taking “the poisoned chalice”. He ignored that barbed comment and alongside Benji O’Brien (no relation) and Poacher he has instilled a sense of purpose and pride in his panel. With uncommon sense, he encourages his players to express themselves because he wants them to enjoy their football.
“You need characters in the game and they’re being done away with,” explains ‘Turlo’.
“We’re not taking it too seriously, we’re very relaxed and confident in what we’re doing and how we’re prepared. We don’t have any rules – the only rule here is there’s no rules.
“They’re mature lads and the most important friend a manager has is the bench. That’s all you need.”
After finishing third in Division Four, Carlow showed their quality by beating Wexford in Leinster and then took positives out of losing to Dublin by beating London and Leitrim in the Qualifers to reach mid-July still standing.
“It has been a great year for us,” O’Brien continued.
“None of us has experienced this before and it has set the county on fire. Everywhere you go it’s red, green and yellow, youngsters are wearing the jersey and everybody is talking football, everybody is more positive about Carlow.
“We feel better about ourselves, we have pride in our place and it’s been a great journey.
“At the same time we’re not overawed by any of it, we don’t feel that we’re a freak, we’re here on merit and we’ve earned the right to go this far in the Championship.
“Nobody is giving us a prayer and that’s understandable. Obviously Monaghan are going to be hot favourites and we’ve no issue with that, but we’re very confident that we’ll give them a really good test.
“We’re confident in our own ability, we’re very confident in the way we’re set up and we’re the best prepared Carlow team I’ve ever seen. We have quality players that would get on any county team and they’re the biggest I’ve ever seen.
“We have size, they’re all mobile, good footballers so I think we’re in a healthy position going into this game and we’ve nothing to lose.”
‘Turlo’ brought Poacher in for some extra input during the Championship last season and was so impressed that he enticed him to join the set-up permanently this year.
He first came across the Ballyholland clubman when he and Wogan (also a football fanatic) made the journey north for one of Poacher’s coaching clinics in Kilkeel a few years ago.
“I remember seeing this Carlow numberplate when I was going in,” Poacher recalls.
“I was thinking ‘who are these loonies coming up here at this time of the morning?’”
The friendship that was struck that day has developed since and Poacher says he saw enough quality in Carlow last year to convince him there was untapped potential in the panel. It was also a challenge, an adventure and a chance to show his worth.
“Turlo asked me if I was interested in getting involved on a full-time basis and I thought: ‘woah, that’s a serious commitment’,” said Poacher, who guided St Columban's, Kilkeel (a school with 200 pupils) to a Vocational School’s All-Ireland title in 2007.
“I talked to Marie (his wife, daughter of former Tyrone star Aidan McMahon) and I just decided ‘why not’, it’s a great experience for me to work outside my province, work outside my county.
“I was down every Sunday in November, then in December I did a Sunday and Wednesday and from January it’s been Tuesday, Thursday and a game at the weekend.”
He threw himself into it and soon it became much more than a job to him.
“I’m a Carlow man now, 100 per cent,” says Poacher who is a constant presence on the touchline during games.
"I've got into a few scrapes I suppose and you get yourself emotionally involved in the game but the flip side to that is that you get the exact same reaction when you're motivating a team behind the scenes.
"I'm not going to change. I think the colour and the character has gone out of the game and we've got so PC it's unbelievable. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'll not change for anyone, it's a passionate game and I'll be the first to shake a man's hand before it and after it.
"I get a bit of stick on the line but it does not phase me in the slightest. The more stick I get the more buzz I get from it."
As well as the Down U21s, Poacher has managed Mayobridge and his native Ballyholland Harps. He's had a considerable impact this year but says manager O'Brien and his team deserve the credit for turning around Carlow's fortunes.
"You have to admire what men like Turlo and Tommy and Benji have done because they’ve been through a lot of bad times too," he said.
“It’s great to be involved and to receive a bit of credit for having a part in it but I’m delighted for them because they’ve been through hell.
“Anything is possible in sport when you have a group of people who believe, who are all singing off the same hymn sheet. When you create a real strong cohesion in your team, anything is possible.
“One of my coaching philosophies is to build spirit and togetherness in a panel, whether it be school, club or county, and I pride myself on that.”
Within a tight-knit group, there are talented individuals like Paul Broderick up front, Brendan Murphy in midfield and Daniel St Ledger and Shane Redmond backboning a rearguard that provides the platform for a system built on defending in numbers and counterattacking at pace.
Then there are the Clarke brothers – Shane and Jamie – who were playing junior football with Bagnallstown a year ago. There is Kieran Nolan, from the Fighting Cocks club that includes Ireland rugby star Sean O’Brien among its members. Nolan has been soldiering on for a decade in red, green and yellow and tonight he gets his chance to shine and he’ll spare a thought for Benny Cavanagh, a certain starter, who’ll miss the game with injury.
Arguably the find of the season has been midfielder Sean Murphy. Nicknamed ‘choo-choo’, Murphy walks to training at Carlow’s superb centre of excellence over the fields.
Before the Leinster quarter-final against Dublin, he helped his dad sheer sheep, then grabbed his bag and headed for Portloaise. He scored a point in that game and likes to hit sideline balls at the end of training.
Last week he kicked them with no socks on.
“Easy Sean, you’ll break your metatarsal,” shouted selector Benjy O’Brien.
“What’s a metatarsal?” answered Murphy and let another one fly.
Training on Thursday ends with a bit of craic.
The Carlow players line up in threes across the 21-yard line. Handpass, handpass, shot…
“For every goal you score, the goalkeepers are doing two press-ups,” says Poacher.
They begin. One goal, two, three, four… There are groans when the fifth shot is saved but the drill continues with flying balls and flying goalkeepers until Poacher joins in for the last salvo.
He takes the ball and of course the goalkeeper comes out to close him down. Poacher chips him and the ball goes up, up, up then drops into the back of the net.
He wheels away in delight.
Woooooohooohooo…
“He’s a gas man,” says 73-year-old Seanie O’Reilly, Carlow’s Maor Uisce since 1991, looking on with a beaming smile.
Getting to the All-Ireland quarter-finals is motivation enough, but a condescending Tweet from former Monaghan, player turned Sky Sports pundit Dick Clerkin has added a little extra spice.
Conveniently forgetting that he played in a League match back in 2004 when Carlow beat the Farneymen by two points at Dr Cullen Park, Clerkin tweeted after the Qualifier draw: ‘Once all they had was sugar beet, now they have a football team!’
His remark hasn’t gone down well.
“He’ll be sitting up in that studio on Saturday and we’ll show him all about sugar beets,” Poacher tells the players.
“They’ll know about plenty on Saturday night.
“Well done lads, give the man beside you a pat on the back.”
Can they win tonight when the sides emerge from the medieval-style tunnel that leads from the changingrooms onto Tommy Ramsbottom’s pristine pitch?
Yes, they are underdogs, but they’ve given themselves a chance.
Whatever happens, once thing’s for certain: Gaelic Football needs more Carlows.
