Andrea Moran optimistic Laois can start looking upward again

Their preparations for the game might have been disrupted by the recent heavy weather conditions, but Andrea Moran is nevertheless excited by the prospect of Laois kick-starting their Lidl National Football League Division Three campaign next weekend.

While snow descended upon many parts of Ireland in the past couple of weeks, the O'Moore County was one of the more affected areas. From a sporting perspective, Laois Hire O’Moore Park had been due to host the All-Ireland club football championship semi-final clash between Errigal Ciarán and Dr Crokes in the men’s game on consecutive weekends (5 /11 January) – only for the Portlaoise venue to be deemed unplayable on both occasions.

During the days in between these proposed fixtures, a number of schools were closed across the county from Monday to Friday. This had an impact on Moran’s working life — she is a Portlaoise-based primary school teacher — and she also had to deal with the fact that two planned inter-county pitch sessions were cancelled.

Yet with the weather improving significantly in the past week, Moran and her team-mates are focused on an opening round league encounter against Carlow at the LOETB Centre of Excellence on Sunday week.

"The weather was just really bad here. The footpaths were lethal. Even the roads were just really bad. It was the safest thing to do, I think. A lot of the schools in the county were closed. We were off for the week," Moran explained.

"We were supposed to be training the Wednesday and the Friday, but we couldn’t train on the pitch because the pitches were covered in snow and frozen as well. We just got our gym sessions in and obviously we’re catching up on those sessions that we’ve missed.

"Last week it wasn’t ideal that training had to be