Tomorrow's second series of Church and General NHL matches features only one re-run of a championship match from last summer. Leinster champions and All-Ireland finalists Kilkenny, again under new management, entertain Laois, the side which nearly cut short their season by three months.

Having painstakingly constructed a three-point lead, Laois were caught in the last 10 minutes by a Kilkenny team, inspired by some characteristic late goal-scoring. Andy Bergin was left wing back that afternoon and is reluctant even to try and draw conclusions from the severe disappointment.

"You don't really want to remember it but it's there at the back of your mind. We beat them last year (in the League) and in the quarter-finals before that (1996) so we don't fear them but it's very hard to read much into League matches. If we win, that's two on the trot and with Tipp and Cork to come, we'll have got a good old run out of the League."

Laois have been in the news since the turn of the year. For a start, their Walsh Cup tie fracas with Dublin generated much controversy and cost them a place in the final of the competition. More edifying has been the general form of the side which started its NHL campaign with a win over Wexford, a first success against opponents whom Laois hadn't defeated for 14 years.

Bergin shrugs off the controversy. "We were not at all disrupted (by the Walsh Cup fallout). It wasn't nice to be thrown out of the competition but it shouldn't have any impact. Getting to the final was a good thing but no-one goes out to win the Walsh Cup any more than they go out to win the League. You go out to play as well as you can and if you end up with a chance of winning something, fine."

Laois's attitude to the League is shaped by bitter experience. Recent results against Kilkenny have been good and include a knockout victory in Thurles three years ago. But come the championship, the story has been one of serial disappointment with narrow defeats, as in the last two years and 1995, vying with awful hammerings in 1996 and '94. Bergin isn't inclined therefore to attach too much importance to the spring competition.

"It's not that important to reach the League play-offs but it is important to beat the likes of Kilkenny. They might be going through managers at a rate but there's always hurlers coming through, they're always strong. Last year everyone says they weren't that good but they got to an All-Ireland final.

"People expect us to beat Kilkenny because we beat Wexford but if we don't, there'll be a feeling that it's back to square one. We beat them (in last year's NHL) 013 to 1-5, I think, but it should have been by more. Then in the championship we thought we had it won. Both losing teams that day (Leinster semi-finals), ourselves and Wexford, were unlucky but if you don't hurl for 70 minutes, you'll always be in danger."

Although the weather is currently poor and pitches too heavy for anything to resemble championship combat, Bergin agrees with the switch of the NHL to a calendar year despite the rushed nature of this year's format.

"The change is no harm. I'd prefer to be hurling in the summer. When the League starts early like this year, it doesn't leave much time for challenge matches so you end up using the League matches as challenges. At the moment we're doing stamina work, there's no real hurling work you can do at this time of year.

"I'd say we were fit enough against Wexford but a lot of us were tired towards the end so we're not as fit as we could be. There's a lot of work to be done but we're not rushing into it because we're not in the championship until June."

Under the management of former Offaly manager and All-Ireland winning captain Padraig Horan, Laois's confidence has improved and there have been plenty of tributes paid to his influence on the team.

"Everyone gets on well with him," says Bergin, "he's a character. All the panel want to do is win so we have no difficulty doing what we're asked."

Finally, he re-iterates the general theme of the conversation, the wariness with which he and his team-mates view the rose-tinted achievements of February and March.

"It's very early in the year to be even talking about hurling. Later in the League when things wind up a bit, that'll be time."