Our 2025 Remembered series is brought to you in association with Bloom HQ, Mountrath
This piece was on site ahead of Courtwood’s first ever Laois SFC final appearance – but it touched on many of the clubs who have made county final day
It’s a familiar scene. The flags, signs and bunting are up. The local school visit is being organised, so too a Meet and Greet, where there will be enough buns, cakes and sandwiches to feed a small army. The craic is mighty. The excitement is off the charts.
For clubs that make rare senior county final appearances, the community response is almost identical to the fevered atmosphere that was evident in the last place that was lucky enough to experience the buzz.
This year it’s Courtwood that have reached an historic first ever senior final, with a fine team that has knocked out Portlaoise and St Joseph’s in successive rounds and who also beat their neighbours O’Dempseys in championship football for the first time in more than 30 years.
They’ve built slowly and steadily towards this. Junior champions in 2014, intermediate champions in 2018, senior semi-finalists in 2022, Division 1 league finalists in 2024.
The team is backboned by lads in their mid 20s, who enjoyed considerable underage success with the Courtwood-Emo St Paul’s amalgamation all the way up along. A bulk of those have all been on Laois underage panels.
Though the club have had fine teams in the years since they were formed in 1962, and reached two senior semi-finals in the 70s, this is a golden generation.
And while there would be a hope that they’ve arrived and will be contenders now every year, there’s also a tacit acknowledgement that this type of opportunity might never come around again.
“You may lose or you may win,” goes the classic song from the Eagles. “But you’ll never be here again,” it adds rather cruelly.
So many sports people can relate. Entire careers, entire generations, can pass without this type of thing happening.
“35 years is a mighty long time,” sang O’Dempsey’s in 2018 when they reached their first final since 1983.
The beaten finalists of the previous year, Annanough, haven’t been back to a decider since.
In 1987, Ballylinan reached a first senior final. They were hammered by Portlaoise and it was 30 years before they got back to another one.
Timahoe reached the 1988 final, which they lost narrowly to Portarlington, and it was another 20 years before they’d reach it again.
Stradbally’s 1989 final appearance was their first in an incredible 40 years. They lost that and had to wait another eight years before they got to it again.
In 1993, The Heath won a thrilling replay against Ballyroan. They haven’t been to a final since.
The Rock were a new finalist in 1998, two years after winning intermediate. They lost that one to Stradbally and though they got back to a semi-final, they never saw another final and were relegated to intermediate in 2013 and to Junior in 2022. They haven’t got to a final of either grade.
Ballyroan Gaels won it in 2006 and have only been to even one semi-final in the years since.
Picture: Alf Harvey.
The two Arles clubs bucked the trend somewhat. Arles-Kilcruise won it in 2003 and returned to finals in 2009, 2010 and 2012. Arles-Killeen lost finals in 2006, 2013 and 2014.
Going back even further, after Graiguecullen won the 1965 Laois senior championship, they proceeded to be knocked out in the first round for the next seven years.
Prior to Courtwood, Killeshin were the newest first-time finalist when they reached the 2019 decider though quarter-final and semi-final wins over Ballylinan and Ballyfin certainly isn’t as impressive as what Courtwood have done.
The Killeshin supporters had a giant flag on the Killeshin Hills that year and later brought it in and tied it down on the terrace side of O’Moore Park. They had a vintage car that was done up in the club colours and spluttered its way to Portlaoise and back, close to a 60-mile round trip that included going up and down the Windy Gap.
When Killeshin crashed home a goal early in the second half that day to go a point up, the giddiness of their supporters was palpable and rightly so. Here they were, less than 10 years after scraping through a Junior final, leading Portlaoise with about 20 minutes to go in a Senior final.
Normal service resumed and Portlaoise won by a point. Killeshin haven’t had the same team since, certainly haven’t got to another final and that car, on last sighting, was parked up, facing into the ditch in the Killeshin grounds. It didn’t look like it’d be capable of getting out the gate, never mind all the way to Portlaoise.
There’s lessons in all of that for Courtwood.
They go in as outsiders but not no-hopers and their form is as good as any team that have faced Portarlington in a county final in this era.
Since coming of age in 2020, Port have invariably saved their best performance of the year for the final. They won that 2020 final by 11 points, 2021 by 15, 2022 by 11 and 2024 by nine.
Port are a serious team that now have huge experience in winning finals comfortably but they could have peaked.
For many clubs against the likes of a seasoned team like Portarlington, Courtwood need to be in contention going down the stretch. Stay in it for as long as possible and anything can happen.
Emo got ahead and had a couple of giddy couple of minutes in 2015 before being pegged back for a draw. Stradbally, famously, struck in injury time in 2016 and held on. Killeshin were within striking distance as the game ticked into injury time in 2019.
The first thing for a club seeking a breakthrough is to get there.
And it’s then all about taking the opportunity of a lifetime – during the lifetime of the opportunity.
Do that and it’ll be a day of days for ever more.
Our 2025 Remembered series is brought to you in association with Bloom HQ, Mountrath
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