Laois manager Tommy Fitzgerald highlighted his side’s ‘heart and desire’ after their Joe McDonagh Cup final victory over Carlow.

After losing two finals on the trot, it was a case of third time lucky for the O’Moore County who can look forward to playing in the Liam MacCarthy Cup next year.

“It wasn’t the best performance ever, the hurling was scrappy but it was pure desire and want and massive work rate, that was incredible,” Fitzgerald told reporters at Croke Park.

“It was probably the winning of the game, I don’t think we hurled well, there was a lot of handling errors and mistakes but in terms of pure desire and work rate and want, it was top class.

“The first day (in the round-robin series), we felt we were outworked in Carlow and the numbers backed that up, there’s been a big focus on that over the last two weeks.

“There’s nothing scientific, just pure heart and desire and the bit of hurt over the last few years probably helped us get to that level today.”

The Portlaoise man was delighted with how Laois regrouped after getting off to a slow start.

“After conceding 1-1 early on, we went on to hit the next five points in-a-row. They had a lot of wides, you have to factor that in but there was a lot of pressure, and Picky (Stephen Maher) got a really big score early to settle us.”

 

 

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