The college-versus-county debate that typically marks the start of the competitive season is under way already after Colm Begley declared his preference to play for DCU – and not Laois – in next month’s O’Byrne Cup.
Begley is merely following the recent guidelines whereby colleges do get first choice on players for such competitions, even though some managers, such as Tyrone’s Mickey Harte, has in the past made that first choice his. However Begley has admitted he has yet to discuss the issue with new Laois footballer mananer Tomás Ó Flaharta, not that he expects any great conflict.
“Well I think it’s the colleges who have preference anyway,” said Begley. “He (Ó Flaharta) hasn’t mentioned it yet to me. But I think I’ll be playing with DCU. I’ve always played with DCU that way. If there’s an issue we’ll talk it out and discuss it, and we’ll see how DCU go first.”
Pre-season work
Begley has already been back doing some pre-season work in Laois under O Flaharta, and likes what he sees so far – suggesting there may be some changes in the sort of defensive football that marked their previous campaigns under manager Justin McNulty.
“Some freshness always brings a bit of excitement no matter who it is. What I liked is he was focusing a lot on football. We were a bit too defensive over the last few years and not expressing ourselves, so hopefully now we are going to be doing that. I didn’t enjoy playing that style of football a lot of times. Tomás has brought in Jerome Stack as a football coach and he is supposed to be very good. I’m not looking for us to be playing Brazil-style football or anything like that, but let us . . . not be so defensively minded.”
Cautious approval
Begley, like most players, has given his cautious approval to the black card, pointing out the apparent loophole for players with two blacks to their name already, and who would miss a game if they picked up a third: "Imagine if I have two black cards, in the second last league game, and I know championship football is coming up. I'd say coaches who are tactically sound would probably say, 'we're okay in the league, we're not going into the final, get a black card here' . . . If you're in a semi-final in Leinster and you get a black card, you miss one game."
Begley’s DCU open their Sigerson Cup campaign against the winners of the preliminary-round match between NUIG and Tralee. DIT will being the defence of their title against St Mary’s, while last year’s beaten finalists UCC open against Trinity.
In the Fitzgibbon Cup, the finals of which will also be hosted by Queen’s University, champions UCC were drawn in the group against WIT, IT Carlow and St Pat’s.
