The game had hardly started, and another 'Division Two' team had bitten the dust. It didn't matter a whit that, after watching Laois get off to a 1-5 to 0-0 start, our lads actually drew the remaining 50 minutes (0-12 to 1-9). Too much damage was done too early . . . in the main, thanks to Donie, who obviously likes watching his 'Premiership' football.

Obviously, I can not say for certain whether Donie Brennan voluntarily threw himself to the ground, experienced an exceptionally strong pull of gravity which went unnoticed by the rest of us (15,000 people, including both teams and management) in the ground, or maybe I'm completely wrong.

He's only a kid. A good kid, with a fantastic natural talent and a great future ahead of him, but an impressionable young man all the same.

Actually, it wasn't Donie who had me vexed . . . and had me giving poor Micko short shrift as he shook my hand after the game.

It was the referee, Mr Geaney from Cork.

It's his job to make sure that I'm allowed to do my job to the very best of my ability.

And when the referee gives an horrific penalty decision against my team, when he appears to me to be protecting the 'big names' on the Laois team, well, naturally, I'm going to be leftf unhappy.

There were four radio journalists and seven print journalists waiting for me outside the door of the Carlow dressing room afterwards. We said 'hello'. They asked me, what I thought of the afternoon in general. Mr Geaney popped up in the conversation very quickly, and I told them that, in my opinion, the referee wasf 'sh*te'.

This word was met with silence, and an awful lot of scribbling. And, immediately, I knew the newspapers the next morning would have a reply from the GAA's great protector of referees, Fr Seamus Gardiner. The Holy Man took a dim view of my five letter word. Surprise, surprise Cilla.

At this stage, this morning, I am aware that readers might have already come to the conclusion that this big, thick, old midfielder from Meath is simply a bad loser.

And in this instance, you'd be right . . . I didn't like losing last Sunday, I didn't like the way we played, I didn't like the referee, and I didn't like the crowd in the stand behind me chanting 'LAOISf LAOISf LAOISf LAOIS (and gloating like bad winners over their friends and neighbours in Carlow), and I didn't like Micko getting louder and louder, and more excited, on the sideline as the final minutes of the game counted down.

Normally, I'm a good loser.

I've had lots and lots of practice, and I'm talking about prior to my arrival in Carlow two years ago. As a Meath footballer I lost two All Ireland finals and two Leinster finals, and as a Skryne footballer I lost seven county finals out of seven appearances.

Carlow's defeat last Sunday hurt us . . . and I didn't sleep a wink all Sunday night . . . but to GAA folk throughout the country, listening in on their radios, it was simply a result which neatly underlined the 1/7 odds which bookmakers had after Laois' name for the two weeks in advance of the game.

As the championship has rolled out these last few weeks, it has also cold-bloodedly rolled over pretty much every single Division Two team. Donegal are the only county from the lower reaches of GAA life who have actually defeated Division One opponents, and everyone knows that Donegal were only in Division 2A of the NFL this winter and spring because of their own neglect and lack of concentration.

Two more Division Two teams, Limerick and Tipperary go head-to-head with Division One opponents this afternoon and it will be a great surprise if they both don't join the rest of us in the qualifying bin.

Carlow are now there, and so too are Cavan, Antrim, Louth, Westmeath, Longford, Sligo, London and Waterford, all having lost to Division One opponents. It's been a bit of a rout so far, to be truthful.

Hopefully life will be a little bit more cheery for us all next weekend, but there is no doubt that Division Two teams have found to their cost that Division One teams are more than just one level above them . . . it's more like two or three levels. For starters, from the opening minute, the speed of thought and general pace of the game can be almost overwhelming.

Last summer, we were three goals down to Wexford after 20 minutes, and we took another 40 minutes to get back level. Our legs were gone for the last 10 minutes.

And then, last Sunday, it looked like our legs were gone for the opening l0 or 20 minutes. Laois were fantastic.

They looked faster, they looked stronger, and their speed of hand playing the ball out of defence was actually worth the admission money on its own.

They should win the Leinster championship this summer, and they could make a really daring and impressive bid for the All Ireland if they continue to improve on this early performance.

I hadn't paid in, of course, but I was still left looking at Micko's lads whisking the ball out of defence, and making superb runs in support of the man with the ball. It was scary stuff to watch . . . if you were a Carlow footballer or if you were wearing the Carlow BAINISTEOIR's jersey.

This time, Carlow never got back level, and we never looked like getting back level.

In that opening 20 minutes Laois had put any thought of winning the game right out of our heads.

Would it be better if Carlow and all of the other Division Two teams were all rounded up at this point and herded into the Tommy Murphy Cup, and saved from any other Division One opposition?

That's one early idea which has been floated by the new boss man in the GAA, and Nickey Brennan's suggestion that we all enter the Tommy Murphy Cup instead of the All Ireland qualifiers, and that one of us reappears in the last 16 or last 8, seems satisfactory, sensible and helpful.

The new president also is an advocate of the NFL reverting to the old days of four divisions . . . one, two, three and four, in descending order. Again he's been entirely sensible. History tells us that any team trying to climb up the GAA ladder, without taking it one rung at a time, usually comes a cropper sooner rather than later.

This afternoon, Limerick will not be at too much risk of doing damage to themselves when they meet Cork, because this Limerick team has fought and won in Division One and still has the battle scars of old battles with Kerry over recent years.

Mickey Ned O'Sullivan's men are also physically as big and capable as any Division One team in the country . . . in fact, they are probably stronger and more muscular than Cork and might have a slight advantage in this department.

But Cork have been building slowly, and ever so quietly (hardly a peep from them in months. ) and there is so much natural talent in this new team which Billy Morgan has been expertly building that it's hard to see them lose.

Limerick just do not have the accuracy or the firepower to win this one.

Tipperary, on the other hand, are in real danger of struggling with the pace of the game against Kerry.

Whenever Jack O'Connor's men choose to put the foot down, whether it's the opening 10 minutes, or 10 minutes in the middle of either half, Tipperary will need to be wide awake, and ready.

Any attacking formation centred around Declan Browne will put a sizeable number on the scoreboard, that's for sure. Equally, the Kerry defence can be opened up.

But if Tipperary can not match the speed of thought and the speed of hand which Kerry will impose on every inch of the field, and stay with that pace for the full 70 minutes, then this afternoon will spell the same trouble for Seamus McCarthy as last Sunday afternoon spelled out for me.

Fermanagh have not put down a single marker of any great consequence since the marvellous and heroic summer of 2004. They look like a team which has started to flag a little. Today will tell us more. Equally, it will be very interesting to see where Armagh stand now that they have had time to reflect on their difficult opening salvo with Monaghan.

Defeat this afternoon might be a savage blow to either team. Joe Kernan and Charlie Mulgrew know in their hearts that if either of them are turned around and pointed in the direction of the qualifiers, then it's only bad news.

It's hard to imagine both Tyrone and Armagh ending up in the qualifiers in the month of June, and this will be the last place Kernan in particular will wish to be with a team which is half rebuilt . . .

and half still sitting on the 'old shoulders' of McGrane, McGeeney, McConville and McDonnell. Armagh can do more than enough to win this time out.

A good five or six points victory would help them to see, clearly, yet one more glorious Ulster title to bank with all their other pieces of gold and silver.