Glenn Ryan's in-form side are aiming to atone for last year's defeat to Laois writes MALACHY CLERKIN

WHEN GLENN Ryan came out of the dressingroom in Portlaoise this very weekend two years ago, it was one of those days where the press lads huddle round the beaten manager out of good manners as much as than anything.

Longford had just lost to Louth in the second game of a Leinster Championship double header and time was getting on, with deadlines making impatient coughing noises in the background. Longford were a poor team, beaten by what we assumed was a slightly less poor team and Ryan had the look of a man not long for the managerial world. When he spoke, it was valedictory stuff.

“Look,” he said, “I feel we’re a better team than that but, unfortunately, at this stage we haven’t reached what I think we’re capable of and that’s very disappointing. I think Louth probably were there for the taking, but we just didn’t reach the level we needed to get to.”

And that very likely would have been that in the normal run of events. Ryan was in his second season in the job, during which the team had been relegated from Division Three and had gone on to finish above only London and Kilkenny in Division Four. If you were looking for the bottom of the food chain, they were down there among the plankton. In the end, only a win that seemed to fall from the clear blue sky against Mayo a month later in the qualifiers kept Ryan in situ. Two years on, look what happened.

“People knew that there were good young players there,” says Declan Rowley, a selector during the Luke Dempsey period that immediately preceded Ryan’s.

“But beating Mayo in the championship that time saved him. He was still looking for his first win in Leinster but there was a good young team there and the county board gave him time.

“The modern phenomenon is that you get rid of the manager very quickly but that does nobody any good. The county board showed good patience and in fairness, it paid off.”

So they go into the first game of the championship as the big tip of the opening weekend. Laois should have fallen to them last year at this stage but Longford made no use of a second-half gale in Portlaoise and lost by a point.

It was a careless defeat, a callow team kicking bad wides from dumb angles. Laois walked into cuffings from Dublin and Kildare afterwards and have just been relegated from Division One.

Longford are coming in on the back of two promotions in two years. Perfect ambush scenario.

“There’s a great optimism about it now,” says Rowley. “Everything is going for us. We have momentum, we have the home venue, our players are playing well and have good confidence. That’s going to give us huge impetus to win.

“But if we don’t win, it will knock us back a bit as well. . . .

“We’d just worry if there’s another gear there. Some teams peak for championship, the big teams in the country get through the league and aim at the championship. Longford haven’t won a Leinster championship game in four years. This is the sort of game they have to be winning because Laois are not going to win the Leinster Championship.”

Rowley lived through plenty of barren years where he knew better than to waste his anxiety on the outcome. In 1988 they beat Westmeath and Wicklow to make a semi-final against Dublin but even that ended in ignominy with an 18-point torching. Legend has it that 10 minutes from the end that day, a voice came over the PA system announcing that, “the gates are now open for Longford supporters . . .”

“I saw years in the 80s and 90s where we were lambs to the slaughter no matter who we met in the championship,” says Rowley. “We have moved out of that category now. We won two Leinster minor championships in the past decade and were in three under-21 finals. We’re not afraid of any team out there and the lads have learned how to win.

“Longford need decent conditions because they have a light, young team and that counted against them last year when the wind was very bad and the scoring was very low. Laois have five big men picked across the middle of the field and Longford will have to run the ball through them. They’re not good at winning primary possession on their own kick-out but they are pretty good at moving the ball and if Laois don’t press them in their backline, Longford will set up enough play to get enough scores.”

They haven’t won a game in Leinster since 2007. They haven’t beaten Laois in the championship since 1968. It’s hard to think they’ve ever had a better chance to right those wrongs.