Leinster SFC Semi-final/Kildare v Laois: Although Mick O'Dwyer will always be regarded with great affection in Kildare, the football people in that county could probably do without seeing him this weekend. The sight of the incorrigible Kerryman evokes inevitable memories of Kildare's high-water-mark performance of 1998, when only a classic Galway performance denied them an All-Ireland championship.
It was generally accepted that O'Dwyer brought Kildare as far as he could that year, and there was no rancour when the team went into gentle decline over the following four summers, and O'Dwyer's 12-year involvement ended somewhat symbolically with defeat to Kerry in the qualifiers in 2002.
"By then, some people had begun to question some of Mick's decisions and query some of the things he was doing," remembers Willie McCreery, Kildare's forceful midfielder during that era.
"And it was crazy given his reputation and where he had brought Kildare. There was no way he was going to remain in that kind of position. But equally, he had put in a lot of seasons to Kildare football and maybe the relationship was reaching a natural conclusion anyway."
McCreery was surprised by neither the hasty overtures Laois made to O'Dwyer nor the fact he instantly conferred on them the same sort of success that made him a figure of reverence in Kildare.
Laois's inability to establish themselves as a significant force at senior level was widely considered something of a perversity, given the ambition and talent their players had shown at underage level. And from the word go, McCreery was convinced his former boss would successfully tap into the temperamental Laois wavelength.
"It's easy be a prophet in another land, and the structure in Laois was much more inviting for Mick than it would have been when he originally came here. The players were already there, guys aged 23 or 24 used to winning things and in their prime.
"There was no way they could not benefit from his influence. I remember when he trained us, his enthusiasm for just the normal sessions would make you want to be there alone. For 7.30 training, Mick might arrive at 6.45, just bursting to get at it.
"But the big difference he made to Kildare football was that he commanded an automatic respect - not just from the players, but from the hierarchy as well. His word was law, and whatever he wanted for the players, he got. Dermot Earley would have had many of the same demands as Mick and tried to get things for his players, but they didn't give him the same absolute authority. Mick put that in place and I think it has stayed after him. I imagine he had the same effect in Laois."
Before O'Dwyer's appointment, Laois football went through 12 managers in 20 years. But all the disaffection and the tame acceptance of their prevailing status as championship fodder simply vanished in the months after O'Dwyer took over.
As the Laois football board had hoped, players were keen to be part of the Kerryman's squad, and it was not long before there was a general appreciation of O'Dwyer's capacity as a Zen master once more.
"There has been a lot of talk about magic and that type of shite," was O'Dwyer's flavoursome response to such rhetoric, "but the truth is we have been lucky, very lucky, in four or five games."
But the truth was also that O'Dwyer produced a Laois team that played deeply attractive football, and they were received as something of a balm by people not persuaded by the rigorous beauty of the northern game. Laois duly beat Dublin and qualified for the 2003 Leinster final and, given O'Dwyer's reputation for the dramatic moment, it was somewhat inevitable that Kildare were the last team standing.
O'Dwyer did not blink, however, and his old county could but watch as he transformed his latest project into All-Ireland contenders with tantalising ease.
"I think people sometimes forget how well Pádraig Nolan did (with Kildare) that year," points out McCreery.
"To begin with, it took a brave man to follow after O'Dwyer, and Pádraig did that even though most of the old team were breaking up. And Kildare pushed Laois all the way in that final - they had a critical free at the end, and then Laois banged over two late points. But it could easily have been Pádraig that performed the miracle work that year. But his achievement was to come in after Micko and to maintain the high standards that had come to be expected."
When selecting his first Kildare championship team, Nolan had only Anthony Rainbow and Brian Lacey available to him from the team that had pushed to the brink of All-Ireland success in 1998.
But from the beginning, he was careful to emphasise the benefit of following O'Dwyer, noting that the notion of success was easy to harness.
"I grew up in this county and never saw Kildare win in Leinster," Nolan said before the 2003 final. "People were always talking about the 1956 team."
Because Laois have been the leaders in Leinster fashion since O'Dwyer's arrival, with heady talk placing them as leading All-Ireland candidates going into last summer, Kildare have been left largely to their own devices. But whatever their limitations, Nolan's teams have never taken the field in less than stubborn mood. And their consistent series of victories in the league, followed by the stern, 14-man expulsion of reigning champions Westmeath from the provincial contest, marks them down as a tough proposition for their former seer tomorrow.
Even the most ardent Laois supporter would concede they were fortunate - albeit courageous - to put Offaly away three weeks ago. Whatever about Ross Munnelly's late, late goal, it was the 20 wides that the Faithful racked up which saved Laois's bacon that day. Predictions that Laois are destined to win an All-Ireland - premature to begin with and never forwarded by O'Dwyer - have dried up over the past 12 months. After last year's Leinster final loss to Westmeath following a replay, and the subsequent hammering by Tyrone, they looked a tired bunch.
But the abiding memory of this Laois team is of the previous year, their wonder year, when they ran Armagh close in the quarter-final series.
With five minutes to go, they were pressing and were dreadfully unlucky when a call was given against Padraic Clancy although he was clearly fouled. Still, with Laois pressing to make up a two-point deficit, Armagh just firmly shut up shop and the Leinster team had no way through.
The impression was of watching a group of teenagers hanging around the entrance to a nightclub until they realised the doormen just weren't going to grant them entrance. It was as if both teams accepted the outcome of the confrontation before it was officially resolved.
O'Dwyer was buoyant that day for a defeated manager, understandably reasoning that Laois were young and had pushed the most frightening team in the land all the way. But as Tommy Lyons discovered the year before with Dublin, it does not always work like that. Because Leinster is relatively weak at present, momentum is everything for the team that takes provincial honours.
Already, that latent promise has dissolved into something less clear for Laois. Last winter was marked by a mini-crisis for the county, with the apparent resignation and return of O'Dwyer underlining a period of confusion. And Portlaoise's run to the All-Ireland club final has hastened the departure of Colm Parkinson, Laois's frustrating but highly creative attacking player.
The brightest news for Laois has been the return to full fitness of Brian McDonald from the horrific broken leg he suffered in the game against Tyrone last summer.
The chances are they will need him.
McCreery does not know how far Kildare can go this year but reckons they have "forward power as good as this county has seen and they have a real sense of belief, a feeling about themselves this year".
And although Glenn Ryan has returned, the personnel havechanged greatly since O'Dwyer's team. He will still recognise the all-white colour, however, and the signs of a Kildare team in good spirits. And it is possibly a sight that he, too, could do without as he attempts to negotiate Laois back to the point of contention again.
