Keith Duggan talks to Laois' inspirational midfielder about tomorrow's important semi-final showdown against Kerry

'It is funny, after we beat Armagh we were regarded as being bigger and stronger and then after we drew with Kildare, we went back to being this small, feeble team. And it is stupid, some of the stuff people say about us," Padraic Clancy says, his bright copper features darkening for an instant.

It was the only discordant note that the rangy Laois midfielder sounded over an afternoon of conversation dominated by tomorrow's tussle against Kerry. Clancy is no stranger to football in the Kingdom.

Famously, his grandfather Jim Sayers was a member of the 1946 Laois team which won the Leinster championship, the last team to do so until Clancy's vintage stormed through in 2003.

Sayers grew up in Kerry and lined out with his native county a few times before moving toward the plains of Laois and building a distinguished football career. Sadly, Sayers passed away at the age of 86 yesterday, two days after his grandson gruffly reminisced about the influence he had on his playing career.

"Yeah, sure he grew up near Ballydavid. The teaching took him up to Laois. He still has a house down there. When I was younger we used to go down because he spent summers down there. So I went down really until I was called into the Laois seniors and even after that, when we weren't going so well, I would head down with a few lads. My grandfather talks about football every day. Every day.

"And An Gaeltacht have a big club down there so he was very proud of that. When I was growing up Darragh Ó Sé was just coming to prominence and he would talk about that a lot. The first time I played against Marc was at minor level in the semi-final of 1998 and he was at halfback and I started on him.

"And I knew about him through Darragh and Tomás. Other than that I had only seen him on television. It seems like they were always the team to beat and I think that is still the case this weekend."

Even dressed in loose overalls at the metal manufacturing plant outside Portlaoise, the Timahoe man has a strikingly spare and loose athletic way about him and he may have the longest wingspan of any player in Gaelic Games. He joined the town firm as an apprentice seven years ago and it is a peaceful place to work, a cool and deliberate environment after the rush and passion of Laois football days.

Aside from football, cars are Clancy's abiding interest and for a while he ran a car accessory shop with a friend. The business went quite well but as he says himself, "I just hadn't the time to keep it going and I was probably that bit young to go out and do it full time."

And that is the thing. Although Clancy has been involved in the Laois senior panel for seven years, he is only just turning 25. He graduated in the last of Laois's celebrated and accomplished minor teams: the county were All-Ireland minor champions in 1996/97 and Clancy's bunch were beaten in the 1998 showdown by a Tyrone team that would go on to prove its extra special calibre.

Brought into the senior panel by Tom Cribben at the age of 18, Clancy was there to experience the disillusionment that set in after Laois's rich underage period did not immediately translate to senior success and then to enjoy the resurgence under Mick O'Dwyer that enabled him to produce a medal which matches Jim Sayers's.

He sighs more than once when that period of extraordinary promise is mentioned, making the fair point that what Laois accomplished almost 10 years ago is irrelevant now.

"The whole minor thing is brought up nearly every time we start to go a bit well. I mean, Kerry have a fair few minor championships and nobody talks about that. It is history as far as I am concerned. I am 25 now and senior football is what I am interested in, not what happened back in the minor days. It is only now that lads are coming of age.

"Not so much starting to settle down but we were young and it was just difficult. Mick O'Dwyer came in with this air of expectation and we responded to that. It is hard to explain but we feel as if we are only just beginning. Because we have only won one Leinster title and we want more than that."

He smiles ruefully when he remembers that the first time O'Dwyer saw Laois play was in the championship in 2002 when they were defeated with embarrassing ease by Meath. Laois's form seemed in direct conflict with the qualities of the players the county possessed and Clancy admits that that period - and that game - was perplexing.

"It wasn't a good time. So we were delighted when Mick agreed to come and train us. And he just didn't take our form into account. He set us running laps. That was all we seemed to do the first year. Our first game was in the O'Byrne Cup and Longford beat us. And we went into the dressing-room thinking, 'Jaysus, what's Mick after taking on here?'.

"And from there we went to the league final and went on to win the Leinster. We could have possibly beaten Armagh in the quarter final but maybe we enjoyed ourselves too much after winning Leinster."

That synopsis of Laois's metamorphosis under O'Dwyer underlines what the county has yet to achieve as much as acknowledges the improvements. Clancy is direct and honest istating his belief that Laois rank with the major football teams in the country but will acknowledge, "It is easy to sit and talk about it."

Still, the form under O'Dwyer has been encouraging and the lessons Laois have absorbed have been from heavyweight teams. In 2002, they played against Kerry for the division two league title.

"A miserable day in Limerick, hailstones and everything. That was the first time I was out against Darragh Ó Sé."

In fact, Clancy had made his full competitive debut the previous week in a tense semi-final against an Armagh team many considered past it. "As it turned out, we were the only team to beat them that year."

When Laois next met Armagh, the Northerners were All-Ireland champions, a stern and clinically calm team hell-bent on achieving greatness. On a memorable afternoon in Croke Park, they burst Laois's bubble, taking ownership of a close game by shutting up shop in the last six minutes to protect a two-point lead. The game arguably turned on a poor decision against Clancy, when he was blatantly fouled while cantering up towards the Canal End seeking a score.

"I knew I was fouled and I got kind of thick about it and sort of lashed out at Oisín McConville. Then they went down the other end and scored and that was it. But looking back, we weren't as disappointed as we should have been because the Leinster success was still so fresh."

Last year, it was Armagh that again defeated Laois at the quarter-final stage with a withering, powerful display that seemed to obliterate the fancy that Laois were genuine All-Ireland contenders. Clancy shakes his head at the memory.

"We owned the ball for the first 27 minutes and couldn't put the scores up. Then in eight minutes Armagh hit us and we went in trailing and asking ourselves what the hell had happened. Our attitude let us down that day and we learned from it."

He doesn't remember it as a particularly physical game and reckons that Gaelic football is more about pace than muscle anyway. Clancy flatly refuses to lift weights, arguing that his 13-and-a-half-stone frame is sufficiently strong.

"This game is all about speed and I don't want added bulk slowing me down. You do get hits but sure you just get up and give a harder one back. And if you are moving well and have the full of your weight behind you, you will be fine."

Last year, O'Dwyer touted Clancy's partner Garvan Ware as among the best midfielders in Ireland. An injury to Ware meant that Tom Kelly has stepped out of defence to partner Clancy during this league. Clancy has just continued to play his own game, moving freely and clipping 10 of his trademark distance points in the league to date.

"Tom is class. I think a lot of people saw that out in Australia. He is great on the ball, very athletic and even when things go wrong hekeeps on plugging away. And Noel is coming back now too so we have extra strength."

The sad news about Jim Sayers brings poignancy to tomorrow's occasion and although the conclusion may be hectic and noisy, Easter Sunday in Fitzgerald Stadium will begin with a silent tribute.

* The decision on whether or not Clancy plays in tomorrow's Allianz NFL semi-final clash with Kerry will be left up to the player himself, after his legendary grandfather Jim Sayers passed away yesterday.

Sayers - ironically, a native of Kerry - passed away yesterday morning, severing another link with the historic Laois team that won the 1946 Leinster senior football title.

"I have been with Padraic and the family, and it will be left up to Padraic if he wants to play. I would be optimistic, knowing Padraic and knowing that his grandfather would want him to play," said Laois selector Declan O'Loughlin.

Family members are due to travel from America for the funeral, which may not take place until Monday.

Meanwhile, the Laois team travel to Kerry later today.

Leinster Council chairman Liam O'Neill led the tributes to Sayers. "I only got to know him long after his playing career ended. He was a revered figure in Laois GAA," said O'Neill.