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Antrim always have fine ballers. Fancy them. and limerick.

Laois didn't deserve any punishment. Sugrue has been very good with clubs. However for Croke Park to give a game in Croke Park as a punishment is taking the biscuit!!

Looks like it's going to be a real dog fight with so many Leinster neighbors fighting it out. Great to see Laois punished with a game in Croke Park! You couldn't make it up.
Down and Westmeath favoutites to go up?

Westmeath and Offaly played out a 0-10 each draw today.
If football was considered to be in a bad place before these rules, it is in a ten times worse place now.

Both teams guilty of ridiculous turn overs, both teams engaging is 5 metres kick passes, at least 2 35 metre kick passes back to goal keepers.

Both teams flooding back on sideline kicks.

Both teams counting others hand passes and calling 3 when on 2 to influence referee into making a wrong call.

Still baffled that the 'tackle' is as vague as ever. Some times the player in possession blown for over carrying when being tackled by 3 players 'hammering him..other times free for him, and yet many more times where frees are given for incidental contact........

This is mad stuff.............

The GAA has long ago stopped treating counties equally or fairly. But in the past  decade the focus is on the top 8 teams both by Croker and the media. Competition structures favour the super powers. Its going to get worse with a B Championship. Wont work long term.

[The abuse hurled at Kildare and their management is disgusting on threads;]

Funny how discussions go on these forums!
The abuse hurled at Kildare and their management is disgusting on threads; yes they have had a very bad run of results and people are disappointed. But the vitriol is sickening.These are amateurs.

Wooly is stirring the pot again. A presenter with Joe.ie with no qualms about letting everyone know he is not impartial! He has run a vendetta against Carlow since the League. A meanness to his posts that his employers should not allow.

As for Laois v Carlow, there's a lot of familiarity between the squads and both league games were played in the proper spirit as will the Championship A lot of nonsense posts on here... can we not support our teams without this crap....

No need to ask, I was at both.

Where? I haven't seen any here, must people here are curious as to why Kildare are struggling, lack of balls is the common hypothesis, hard to argue against.

Have you asked what happened in that league game? It might open your eyes to the tactics Carlow are employing.

Great read from the Irish Examiner   

https://amp.irishexaminer.com/sport/columnists/john-divilly/john-sugrue-building-confidence-and-trust-in-laois-471255.html?__twitter_impression=true

That's one of the best GAA articles I've read in a long time. Some of the forward play in the second half was top drawer stuff and in the space of Croke Park we can expect more.

Funny how discussions go on these forums!
The abuse hurled at Kildare and their management is disgusting on threads; yes they have had a very bad run of results and people are disappointed. But the vitriol is sickening.These are amateurs.

Wooly is stirring the pot again. A presenter with Joe.ie with no qualms about letting everyone know he is not impartial! He has run a vendetta against Carlow since the League. A meanness to his posts that his employers should not allow.

As for Laois v Carlow, there's a lot of familiarity between the squads and both league games were played in the proper spirit as will the Championship A lot of nonsense posts on here... can we not support our teams without this crap....

Have to say the coverage of this all week in the Irish News has been hysterical. I listened to a podcast about the game and it seems the game was actually played in a good spirit. Yes there were a number of serious injuries, one in particular which was off the ball. The ref dealt with the perpetrators and they have been suspended as per rule. There is no more to it than that. No one wants to see players badly injured but lets not be stoking things up.

The stroke which broke michael armstrong's arm - and received no booking!

Looks shocking bad.
Hope he recovers asap.

Sure maybe they'll all make the last 8......
Louth and Carlow are now in D3.
Offaly seem to have totally imploded.
Laois, now D3 will beat Wexford 19 times out of 20.
New York are the 33rd best team in the Championship.
Sligo won handy enough in London.
Anyway 8 years ago Roscommon who had been relegated to D4 won Connacht.

What jaundiced views you have. Those teams operating in Division 4 struggle year by year to progress and get out of it; this summer at least they have given their supporters and clubs a wee bit of optimism. No one talking about Super 8s. NFL 2018 standings - Louth Div 2, Carlow Div 4, Offaly Div 3, Wicklow Div 4, Sligo Div 3, London Div 4.

Leitrim survived a real banana skin v New York after a debilitating League; Carlow took out Louth from Division2; Laois got over Div 3 Wexford after ET and bottom of Div 4 Wicklow shocked Offaly. Nice to see the up turn in fortunes for these counties. London recovered from a bad start v Sligo to finish strongly but had left themselves with too much to do.
Antrim to shock Down?
Limerick and Waterford though look like they have too much ground to make up v Clare and Tipp - two counties who were Division 4 residents for a number of seasons just a short while ago.

So maybe the Championship isn't dead just yet!

https://www.facebook.com/ballsdotie/videos/10156429373951042/

They're certainly enjoying their football!

Id be more worried about the performance of our team than the crowd. We ripped into fitzy and adams that we were too defensive and had no system of play. Then lenny gets appointed and we heard about better systems of play, better conditioned players and kickout strategy. Could anyone really say they have seen evidence of any of these and the guys are training 5 days a week. Carlow were better all over the park and deserved the win but we are not fit by any means ( cj is in shocking condition ), kerrs kickouts have only 1 pattern (long) and we got back in numbers but couldnt get out when we won the ball. I think we are honestly playing at our level and until we have alot of personel changes we will stay in div 4 for a while. Last year we were very competative all year pushing armagh and longford for 60 mins and we had a few dismissed and both these teams are looking at promotion to div 2. Nows the time to get rid of players who dont want to commit to the lifestyle of a county player regardless of their supposed talent and build a new young hungry and committed squad who see playing for antrim as a privilage not a hassle. I believe we do have the talent but were not committing to them and going back to the old. The carlow supporters were laughing at some players conditions throughout the match.
The usual guys are very quiet about this performance are they now realising we mighten have the mix of players or management they were all upbeat about earlier in the year when we were playing the weakest teams in the league.

Thought Antrim were unlucky last year to make the drop but they look lukewarm in the games i've seen. Leaders on the field are lacking. Thought kickout was very poor and Carlow closed it down very well.

That was a turn up for the books; the two relegated Div 3 sides beaten to the first promotion spot by Carlow. Looks like curtains for Antrim now, Carlow will surely put out below strength team with an eye to the League Final. Nice to see them on the up.