Relegation hangs on a team like a bad smell unless and until someone comes to air the place out. Anthony Cunningham isn't anyone's idea of a whirlwind but his introduction into the Laois backroom team in the past week has changed the atmosphere, according to Donie Kingston

“I have to say it’s a bit of a coup for us really to get a man of his experience in with us. I think he’s going to help us big time. He has a lot of experience with intercounty set-ups, with hurling and football, which will only help us in our preparations. I think it’s a real coup for Laois.

“The positivity around the appointment and the fact that we’ve got someone of real calibre has helped the squad big time. . . He’s only been with us a week now. We’ll have him the whole way up to the Wicklow game anyway, we’ll have to see from there.”

Kingston was talking at the launch of the Leinster championships and if Laois manage to get past Wicklow they will meet Dublin outside Croke Park for the first time since 1995. It will be in Nowlan Park rather than O’Moore Park but at the very least, it’s a straw to clutch at.

Second nature

“In previous years you’d be looking at it that you’d have to go and beat Dublin in pretty much their home pitch Croke Park. . . I think it makes a massive difference. They are so used to playing there, they know the dimensions of the field so well. Croke Park is different to any other pitch in the country with the stadium and the size of it, there are so many different elements to it but now it is like second nature to them. It’s a big thing to get them out of Croke Park and I think it should have been done before this year as well.

“You never know with the GAA. If they see that revenues might be down that might get them to take action and bring it back to Croke Park but you’d hope they’d keep it out of Croke Park because it’s not fair, it really isn’t. It’s a bias towards one county and the others have to put up with it . . .”

Meanwhile, Jim Gavin has expanded on his objections to the drug-testing procedures that took place after the league final in Croke Park the weekend before last.

Stressing again that he has no quarrel with the testing itself – indeed he reckons there ought to be more of it in the GAA than there currently is – he nonetheless took issue with how quickly his players were taken away from their teammates in the aftermath of winning a league title.

“My issue at the time was the doping control officer should have waited until the player came back in from the celebrations. Because once he makes contact for the player, the player has to go to that doping control centre.

“The point is that the doping control officer shouldn’t approach the player until all that is over. Let him enjoy his post-match dealing with defeat or victory or those special times when you can have a little time with players, where you can soak in that atmosphere.

“Those precious couple of moments after a game. Once that is over, then approach the player. . . But not when a player walks down the tunnel after a game and the emotions haven’t probably even left him.”