Some considerable time ago Fergal Byron proposed marriage to Fiona Kenny and was accepted. They fixed the date and went ahead with their plans but then football intruded. Unable to cancel the actual date of the wedding, they will marry in St Michael's Church in Portarlington on Saturday afternoon and instead of being on their honeymoon, they will be in different parts of Croke Park on Sunday. Fergal will be in goal for Laois and hoping that a victory might postpone their honeymoon even further. "When we win we will go away for a few days next week, but the real honeymoon will not take place until we are out of the championship" he says.

So what did Fiona think when she realised that Laois would be playing in Croke Park on the day after her wedding?

"To be honest she wasn't very impressed at first, but she is resigned to the situation now and she has been very supportive as we prepared for the match and the wedding at the same time.

"She is from a very GAA-minded family, so she has come around to accepting that it will be part of our lives and seems happy enough to go along with the situation for as long as it takes," says the groom. Insofar as the match against Kildare is concerned, Byron has a positive approach. "We are really determined to avenge last year's disaster, but we realise that we have a hill to climb. Kildare have vastly experienced players such as Glen Ryan, Willie McCreery and Niall Buckley and we must curb those in particular if we are to win."

As a goalkeeper, he has frustrations which others do not experience. "From the goal you can see things out the field that others cannot see, but in Croke Park you can only communicate with the full back line and hope that they will pass on the advice. He expects to meet his fellow squad members in the Montague Hotel some time on Saturday, but knows that nobody will stay up late.

"The match will be on everyone's mind of course, but I hope that my mother Marie, who is from Kildare, will give me her full support. There are Offaly, Galway and Kildare connections in the two families, but Laois will get full support and we will take it from there," he says as he dashes away to make last-minute arrangement for what will, surely, be one of the most important weekends of his life.