2022 National Football League

[Spiritof86]

Very wary of today . Longford are very much our level and have a guy in charge with a huge point to prove . Interest in the county football team is very low judging attendances  . Division 4 football will be disastrous. Take any sort of win today .

[Chrimtain]

This is as bad as it gets. We are rock bottom.

[Silkyskillssunshinee]

This is as bad as it gets. We are rock bottom.

In all honesty, it's probably not the worst thing to go down to Division 4. There's a chance to build a young squad from the bottom up next season and hopefully the management commits to the youth. The last time it seemed to work for Sugrue anyway as he managed back to back promotions and a Leinster final appearance.

If Wicklow have anything about them, they should knock us off in the first round of the Leinster championship. They'll never get a better opportunity considering how poor we are at the minute.

[Chrimtain]

Relegation could be accepted had we used Div. 3 to introduce
more youth, but it was disheartening to see management going back to the older guys time and time again. Bleak future awaits us.

[The PRO]

Relegation could be accepted had we used Div. 3 to introduce
more youth, but it was disheartening to see management going back to the older guys time and time again. Bleak future awaits us.

Not defending Billy.or anything but the pick of the best young lads in the county turned down the invitation to be part of the panel so very hard to introduce young blood then.
To the best of my knowledge and it might not be a complete list either, these lads all weren't interested. Diarmuid Whelan, Ronan Coffey, Robert Tyrrell, Jack Owens, Niall Dunne, Gary Saunders. They were the pick of the last two good under 20 teams.

[High Fielder]

Yeah no fault of Billy's. He has what he has and we're not good enough. It's time to accept that. We have a million problems and nobody to fix them. I genuinely feel this county has no chance with the current County Board in place. We wouldn't do any worse if they stepped aside en masse

[Giovanni]

Being not good enough is one thing but being badly prepared is another. A manager can't control mist of what happens on a football pitch but he can surely work on kick outs (both from an attacking and defensive point of view). When you look at what we've been trying to do on this over the last few games, you would have to say that we are badly prepared. Very disappointing.

[town1980]

Omg where do I start? Giovanni well said no clue the last few games billy and Chris what is the plan here it looks from the outside the worst prepared team we have ever seen,, both danial and Brian b were poor the energy levels were poor we lookeD like a div 4 team let's not disguise this look at the team and panel will them players dominate Laois club championship not a hope simple as ,, one port guy on it the billy effect hasn't worked dressing room maybe lost I don't know but jays are we that bad ?

[Downtheroad]

Yeah no fault of Billy's. He has what he has and we're not good enough. It's time to accept that. We have a million problems and nobody to fix them. I genuinely feel this county has no chance with the current County Board in place. We wouldn't do any worse if they stepped aside en masse

The County Board is the easy target here. However its composition reflects our clubs so we all have take a share of the responsibility. The clubs are the real culprits as evidenced by the resolute opposition to reducing the senior Championship from 16 as practically every club is terrified of relegation. In a county the size of Laois, 8 senior clubs is more than enough as 16 team senior championship is at the heart of our troubles as it contributes to poor standards and bad practices. Considering we are in Division 4 I imagine some young lads will return as there might be a medal in it.   

[thegreeenandgold]

No fault of Billy's or Chris's you must be joking they took the job made an absolute balls of it, stuck Ross in at every chance they could.   

Complete disaster

[Laoiseabu]

Division 4 next year will be Sligo, Wexford, Laois , Leitrim , Waterford, Wicklow , Carlow , London . That's a very very poor group of teams to be down with and we deserve to be there too.
You'd think when we got relegated to division 4 back 4 or 5 years ago that it would of been a serious wake up call to the county to get ourselves in order but obviously not and now we have made the same mistakes and gone and done it again . Will we learn from our mistakes and get our house in order this time ? No of course we won't . Even if we come up from division 4 we will be found out in division 3 and go straight back down again .
If we don't sort ourselves out this cycle will continue. There is not near enough being done in this county at club or underage level to prepare our players for the demands of senior inter county football and the same problems are showing up over and over again year in year out .
The county board needs a COMPLETE overhaul , the structures in Laois football need a COMPLETE overhaul from top to bottom starting at underage club level all the way up to senior inter county level . It actually BAFFLES me that players are brought into underage development squads in Laois at a young age and by the time they get to senior they are still no closer to being physically, athletically, tactically  or technically ready for senior inter county football than when they first came through the door at the centre of excellence as 14 or 15 year olds with raw potential.
You yield what you sow and there is not near enough being done at a developmental level in Laois to bridge the gap . The results of our failure to address these issues are blueprinted all over our Laois senior football team since 2003 and the more the game has moved towards professionalism in Ireland the further down the pecking order Laois have become.
Something serious needs to happen soon and I would start with replacing that out of date county board of dinosaurs and replace them with people who are proactive and are willing to do whatever it takes to put Laois football back on the map and give young aspiring Laois footballers the platform to become the best version of themselves

[High Fielder]

No fault of Billy's or Chris's you must be joking they took the job made an absolute balls of it, stuck Ross in at every chance they could.   

Complete disaster

Nobody better unfortunately. If there was, they'd be in there. We seem to have no problem getting lads to play up to 21, but then a good percentage of them drift away. Some of them go in and out through the revolving door, but that's no good for continuity or development of themselves or the team.

[High Fielder]

Division 4 next year will be Sligo, Wexford, Laois , Leitrim , Waterford, Wicklow , Carlow , London . That's a very very poor group of teams to be down with and we deserve to be there too.
You'd think when we got relegated to division 4 back 4 or 5 years ago that it would of been a serious wake up call to the county to get ourselves in order but obviously not and now we have made the same mistakes and gone and done it again . Will we learn from our mistakes and get our house in order this time ? No of course we won't . Even if we come up from division 4 we will be found out in division 3 and go straight back down again .
If we don't sort ourselves out this cycle will continue. There is not near enough being done in this county at club or underage level to prepare our players for the demands of senior inter county football and the same problems are showing up over and over again year in year out .
The county board needs a COMPLETE overhaul , the structures in Laois football need a COMPLETE overhaul from top to bottom starting at underage club level all the way up to senior inter county level . It actually BAFFLES me that players are brought into underage development squads in Laois at a young age and by the time they get to senior they are still no closer to being physically, athletically, tactically  or technically ready for senior inter county football than when they first came through the door at the centre of excellence as 14 or 15 year olds with raw potential.
You yield what you sow and there is not near enough being done at a developmental level in Laois to bridge the gap . The results of our failure to address these issues are blueprinted all over our Laois senior football team since 2003 and the more the game has moved towards professionalism in Ireland the further down the pecking order Laois have become.
Something serious needs to happen soon and I would start with replacing that out of date county board of dinosaurs and replace them with people who are proactive and are willing to do whatever it takes to put Laois football back on the map and give young aspiring Laois footballers the platform to become the best version of themselves

Good post.

[Laois man]

Are you putting your name forward for County Chairman?

[clonadmad]

Division 4 next year will be Sligo, Wexford, Laois , Leitrim , Waterford, Wicklow , Carlow , London . That's a very very poor group of teams to be down with and we deserve to be there too.
You'd think when we got relegated to division 4 back 4 or 5 years ago that it would of been a serious wake up call to the county to get ourselves in order but obviously not and now we have made the same mistakes and gone and done it again . Will we learn from our mistakes and get our house in order this time ? No of course we won't . Even if we come up from division 4 we will be found out in division 3 and go straight back down again .
If we don't sort ourselves out this cycle will continue. There is not near enough being done in this county at club or underage level to prepare our players for the demands of senior inter county football and the same problems are showing up over and over again year in year out .
The county board needs a COMPLETE overhaul , the structures in Laois football need a COMPLETE overhaul from top to bottom starting at underage club level all the way up to senior inter county level . It actually BAFFLES me that players are brought into underage development squads in Laois at a young age and by the time they get to senior they are still no closer to being physically, athletically, tactically  or technically ready for senior inter county football than when they first came through the door at the centre of excellence as 14 or 15 year olds with raw potential.
You yield what you sow and there is not near enough being done at a developmental level in Laois to bridge the gap . The results of our failure to address these issues are blueprinted all over our Laois senior football team since 2003 and the more the game has moved towards professionalism in Ireland the further down the pecking order Laois have become.
Something serious needs to happen soon and I would start with replacing that out of date county board of dinosaurs and replace them with people who are proactive and are willing to do whatever it takes to put Laois football back on the map and give young aspiring Laois footballers the platform to become the best version of themselves

While its easy to blame the County Board and I do on a regular basis

The blame can also be levelled at the clubs

I spoke to an individual recently from outside the county who has been involved with underage development squads the past 2/3 years at u14/15 level in Laois.

He described the skill set of a majority of players at even the most basic level as "abysmal",

that there are 4/5 clubs in the county at most that are coaching their juvenile players to the required level to their age grade,

that the rest seemed to be getting little or no coaching in the basics.

He named the 4/5 clubs who are doing their business right but he said there are a lot of other clubs who are sending in their players who have to be shown the basic skills in a development squad setting which isn't the place for that.

He wasn't blaming the young players themselves, the opposite was the case

he was annoyed that they weren't been given the tools by their own clubs to make the best of the themselves