Camogie and Ladies Football coverage is brought to you in association with The Square Bar, Portlaoise
Laois camogie joint-manager Pat Collier has issued a rallying cry to the people of the county to get out and support the team on Sunday.
Laois head to Croke Park on Sunday where they will face Armagh in the All-Ireland Premier Junior final at 1pm.
This is the second successive week that the county will be represented in a national final after the Ladies footballers lost out to Tyrone in the Intermediate final last Sunday.
Speaking prior to that particular game, Collier revealed how he and his team would be in Croke Park to support the footballers first.
He said: “It’s great to see the footballers in the All-Ireland on Sunday and we gave the girls Sunday off.
“We normally train on Sunday, but we’re training Saturday night instead so all of our girls can support them.
“We’ll support them and it’s hugely important that the people of Laois get behind both these teams, like when was the last time a county had two teams in an All-Ireland final, football and hurling?
“That’s the mix we have in Laois, so we should be very proud of them and I just hope the Laois people get off their backsides and support these two teams and hopefully there’ll be two wins.”
Laois reached this stage last year and were beaten by a point by Tipperary.
They went into that game with a panel of 31 but 15 of those did not return to the fold this season for a mix of reasons.
Collier said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be back and when we went back down the tunnel after being interviewed last year, we stopped at the dressing room wall because there was a good speech inside by some of our senior players and tears and you know yourself.
“It was really refreshing for me and Rob to hear, even though we were heartbroken. The girls inside were saying that they’re going to come back next year to try and give this one more go.
“People think we have 17 or 18 clubs to pick from, but we have eight. Last year, we had a panel of 31, 16 or 17 came back due to college, work, travelling, all that, that’s part of sport.
“That’s huge for Laois and we had to find another 15 girls, which took a lot of doing, a lot of work for Rob and me behind the scenes and those girls have driven the other girls on.
“As far as learning from last year, for me, Laois were the better team, but we just missed clinical scores at an important time.
“This year, we’ve been working on that the whole time in training about the finishing and I think we’ve improved. We’ve scored a lot of goals this year, I believe if we can get two or three in the final, we’ll take some beating.”
Collier also revealed that Liaden C-Fennell, who was captain last year, should be back for the final as she has recovered from a broken hand.
He said: “Liadan C-Fennell had a broken hand there for six weeks and she’s back for the last three weeks. She has played two matches and she was our captain last year.
“She’s a huge cog in this wheel, so it’s great to have her back. We need her firing on all cylinders like everybody else, but she was the only injury worry that we had.
“We were just speaking last night that we’re after being blessed with injuries and I just hope it continues that we get through without any major injuries, so, look hopefully onwards and upwards.”
Camogie and Ladies Football coverage is brought to you in association with The Square Bar, Portlaoise
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