Thirty years ago Niall Rigney played in his second county senior hurling final for Portlaoise at the age of 20. Winning his first winner’s medal ought to have been the day’s abiding memory were it not tainted by darker events. A decade that generated optimism around Laois hurling of a kind not seen in 40 years, since the county reached the ’49 All-Ireland final, finished with a county final smeared by violence. The decade which also provided the county’s first hurling All-Star, as a testament to Laois’s rise and brief flirtation with the good times, ended with a county final of such horrendous and reckless disregard for basic safety that it broke all the rules of respect and honour. Players and mentors behaved appallingly, mindlessly, with reckless striking to the head part of the grisly spectacle of lawlessness. Long suspensions followed. Partly it was a result of an over-active rivalry. Almost every year the same two clubs, Portlaoise and Camross, contested the final. In his book on a life of hurling, a beautiful and engaging memoir published in 2008, that sole Laois hurling Allstar, Pat Critchley, detailed the belts, bruises and breaks he suffered in his playing career. And of…