Ian O'Riordan talks to Carlow stalwart Johnny Nevin who has mixed recollections of the last time his county met Laois in the championship.

As if playing the Leinster champions weren't enough motivation, Carlow might feel they've an old score to settle when they meet Laois in Sunday's Leinster football quarter-final. This time nine years ago, when the two counties last met in the championship, controversy erupted and brought about the rarest of GAA procedures - a result overturned on the basis of a disputed score.

Summer had come early that year too when Carlow travelled to O'Moore Park. Both sides fancied their chances of setting up a semi-final date with Dublin and, as expected, the game was tight. As the clock ticked out Michael Turley sent over a "point" that pushed Laois 2-11 to 1-13 in front. Spectators shook their heads in disbelief - the ball had clearly gone wide.

Johnny Nevin was one of the seasoned Carlow players that day, and his remarkably enduring career will see him start again on Sunday. His memories of 1995 are still clear.

"I remember the game was very much hanging in the balance right at the very end," he says. "Laois had a shot at goal and straight away I thought it had clearly gone wide. Then the umpire signalled it as a point. And that had clearly turned the whole game."

Once the referee accepted the umpire's call it appeared Carlow's fate was sealed. Against most expectations, however, Laois went to the Leinster Council and agreed to a refixture - a generous deed that later that year earned them a special Fair Play award from Bank of Ireland, the championship sponsors.

Seven days later they were back in Portlaoise, and this time Laois won legitimately, 1-16 to 0-16. Nevin's recollection of that day is a little more blurred - "big crowd, hot day" - but deep down some of the Carlow players were left feeling their original chance of victory was stolen from them.

Times have changed in the nine years since and on Sunday Carlow will host the reigning Leinster champions at Dr Cullen Park, this time as firm underdogs. What they do have on their side is the elevated confidence from their surprise win over Longford back on May 9th, and Nevin feels they will be able to rise to the challenge.

"I feel we've trained very well, and everything has gone the way we would have wanted. It was a hard game though against Longford and I think most of us needed the week after to fully recover. But we got over it anyway and got straight back into the training.

"And we didn't dwell on that win. In fact there was no celebration really, nothing that was planned anyway. We were back together on the Tuesday night after, and took it up from there."

Laois have been lying low since the conclusion of their league - just the way Mick O'Dwyer likes it - and yet Carlow, with home advantage, have little reason to fear them.

"There's no doubt the whole panel is very upbeat about this game. There's been a great buzz in training there. I think we all want to do ourselves justice in this one. But we're not getting carried away with the challenge. Home advantage we know always helps, but I don't know when it's ever won a match. We'll take it though.

"And we're all seeing this as just the next step. The Longford game is behind us now, gone from us, and we're only thinking now about the next one. The only thing that matters now about the Longford game is us trying to reproduce that form."

Another small plus for Carlow is that manager-adviser Luke Dempsey, who had just a handful of sessions before the Longford game, will have cast a little more of his spell: "Yeah," says Nevin, "he'll have had another three weeks and of course that's allowed him to get to know all the players a little better. And I know he's really up for it as well.

"And you do sense the buzz in the county alright but there's no problem keeping it under control. There are some people getting quite excited about it for sure but we're concentrating on our own thing, which is playing the game."