2019 Allianz National Hurling League

[The PRO]

You're about to be outed Keyser!

https://soundcloud.com/laoistoday/ep22-who-is-laoiss-keyser-soze-goal-celebrations-and-reasons-for-optimism

They have very little to be worrying about.

Tis only a bit of craic, don't take it so seriously.

Yeah, I'm really concerned about it...

[Keyser Söze]

You're about to be outed Keyser!

https://soundcloud.com/laoistoday/ep22-who-is-laoiss-keyser-soze-goal-celebrations-and-reasons-for-optimism

What's this about?!

[Keyser Söze]

Just listened there.
Stand over my argument. There is no comparison between the Divisional set ups in hurling & football.
Anything beyond 1B is wasteland in hurling.
We have spent time in Division 2A on a couple of occasions over the last 20 years- I've yet to see it doing any good. The football comparison is not valid IMO.

And as an aside- they are fairly thin skinned for professional journalists!

[Don Draper]

Just listened there.
Stand over my argument. There is no comparison between the Divisional set ups in hurling & football.
Anything beyond 1B is wasteland in hurling.
We have spent time in Division 2A on a couple of occasions over the last 20 years- I've yet to see it doing any good. The football comparison is not valid IMO.

And as an aside- they are fairly thin skinned for professional journalists!

They were joking, relax lads

[Keyser Söze]

Just listened there.
Stand over my argument. There is no comparison between the Divisional set ups in hurling & football.
Anything beyond 1B is wasteland in hurling.
We have spent time in Division 2A on a couple of occasions over the last 20 years- I've yet to see it doing any good. The football comparison is not valid IMO.

And as an aside- they are fairly thin skinned for professional journalists!

They were joking, relax lads

I wasn't about to hire Johnny Cochrane 🙄

[Don Draper]

Just listened there.
Stand over my argument. There is no comparison between the Divisional set ups in hurling & football.
Anything beyond 1B is wasteland in hurling.
We have spent time in Division 2A on a couple of occasions over the last 20 years- I've yet to see it doing any good. The football comparison is not valid IMO.

And as an aside- they are fairly thin skinned for professional journalists!

They were joking, relax lads

I wasn't about to hire Johnny Cochrane 🙄

You called them thin skinned. It was obvious they were joking.

[burdizzo]

Decent spread of clubs represented on the starting team against Waterford tomorrow - eleven.
I supposed he'll be keeping Cha and Foyle fresh for the Offaly match?

[Mossy Bruce]

...
I supposed he'll be keeping Cha and Foyle fresh for the Offaly match?

Good idea.

[Mossy Bruce]

Here's to the best of luck to the lads, today (actually still tomorrow, here in Oregon). I am feeling optimistic that they will put in a good fight against "The (hopefully) Gentle County."

Laois abú!

[Mossy Bruce]

So what happened to bring about a red card in the second half?

With only 14 on the field for most of the second half, the score spread could have been much worse.

[Don Draper]

As I tried point out, Galway are sleepwalking through this league, as today's result in Carlow showed. Our Waterford result sadly is a more realistic viewing of where we're at. It's not a dig at the players whom I have the utmost respect for, merely an observation. Fair play to Carlow but it won't be remembered much later in the year.

[Unlaoised]

The scoreline could have so much worse ifvwaterfordcwsnted it to be ...

I left with 20 to go couldn't take anymore

[Mad Mentor]

We lacked a lot in physicality against Waterford. They won every 50-50 challenge and always seemed to be first to the ball. When we got possession we were swarmed by two or three Waterford players while we couldn't lay a glove on them. Some very silly yellow cards conceded from what seemed to be petulant slapping with the hurl when beaten by the Waterford lads. As for Lee Cleere's red card, I think Eddie was being a bit generous describing it as "tough luck". I hope Lee learns from it and cuts out the unnecessary macho posturing when coming on. To get sent off without touching the ball doesn't look good.

To give the lads credit, they played to the very end, and coped well with being a man down, but that extra power and poise from Waterford meant they were able to tack on scores at ease towards the end - when it looked like we might get the lead down to single digits. They were able to play heads-up hurling while we continually ran into blind alleys and coughed up possession.

I thought our half-back line was our best with both Jack Kelly and Sean Downey showing well, but otherwise we struggled everywhere.
With Carlow drawing with Galway, it's a shootout between ourselves and Offaly. Regardless of who wins the match next week, we will meet in the relegation final and we have in the past struggled to beat teams twice in succession.

[blueandwhite1]

We lacked a lot in physicality against Waterford. They won every 50-50 challenge and always seemed to be first to the ball. When we got possession we were swarmed by two or three Waterford players while we couldn't lay a glove on them. Some very silly yellow cards conceded from what seemed to be petulant slapping with the hurl when beaten by the Waterford lads. As for Lee Cleere's red card, I think Eddie was being a bit generous describing it as "tough luck". I hope Lee learns from it and cuts out the unnecessary macho posturing when coming on. To get sent off without touching the ball doesn't look good.

To give the lads credit, they played to the very end, and coped well with being a man down, but that extra power and poise from Waterford meant they were able to tack on scores at ease towards the end - when it looked like we might get the lead down to single digits. They were able to play heads-up hurling while we continually ran into blind alleys and coughed up possession.

I thought our half-back line was our best with both Jack Kelly and Sean Downey showing well, but otherwise we struggled everywhere.
With Carlow drawing with Galway, it's a shootout between ourselves and Offaly. Regardless of who wins the match next week, we will meet in the relegation final and we have in the past struggled to beat teams twice in succession.

It's been like this for many years now in the physicality stakes for Laois. In fairness there are a few lads who have a bit of power and hurling combined (Ryan Mullaney, Jack Kelly, Cha, Matthew, Foyle) but we have a lot of small lads who need bulking up too. Youth isn't an excuse anymore - look at Waterford, Limerick and Galway for example. I watched the Tipp game at the weekend and they struggled with Limerick's all round physicality too and Tipp are no small team. Things move on. Good article on RTE Website yesterday about being at nothing without tall and strong ball winning half forwards. We could do with a few.

[Mossy Bruce]

I was curious about Laois' record against Offaly over the last five years, so I did a little research and found the following:

2018
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
No matches against Offaly as Laois were now in the new Joe McDonagh Cup

Allianz National Hurling League
Offaly 1-21 v 1-16 Laois

2017
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
No matches against Offaly

Allianz National Hurling League
Laois 1-26 v 1-20 Offaly

2016
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
No matches against Offaly

Allianz National Hurling League
Offaly 1-17 v 0-15 Laois

2015
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
Leinster Senior Hurling Championship[?]
Laois 0-29 v 0-21 Offaly (Quarter-Final)[?]

Allianz National Hurling League
Offaly 1-24 v 0-23 Laois

2014
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
No matches against Offaly

Allianz National Hurling League
Offaly 2–14 v 1–19 Laois

I have a feeling there are some (maybe a lot of) mistakes on this--a work in progress.
Please let me know of any errors or omissions. Thanks!