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Messages - Pugwash

#1
Could Laois potentially look at putting together u12/u13 development squads? Am I right in saying that u14s is the youngest age group that we have at the moment?

The younger you can catch these players the better, because you would hope by the time they mature, all of what they've learned will just become second nature to them. I.E. drilling home the basic fundamentals, the importance of nutrition, S&C training, exposing players to what it's like to be in an elite environment etc.

Inviting in local club coaches of the players involved into training to show them how a session is properly structured, that will ultimately allow it to flow properly. Or even spread training around the county regularly, which will allow "Laois development squads to come to them" per say.

Our senior team cannot go any lower than when we're at the moment, so instead of being short sighted and pluck for a big name on huge wages invest that money into better coaching structures at underage level.

I completely get the reasoning behind hiring a Mickey Harte type, because now Louth will ride the crest of a wave for a few years with them getting into a Leinster Final. "But" Louth haven't won a Leinster minor title since 1953 or an under 20 title since 1981 so you would wonder how long they will sustain the consistency they've shown this year and last year per say?

When Laois were doing really well at underage level in the mid to late 90s and into the 00s, it was no fluke that we were able to sustain a competitive senior team for the best part of a decade.

It really isn't rocket science, plough money into developing our younger players and into coaching structures and watch it bear fruit. Have a target that by 2034 that we will have our senior side in Division 1/2 with our underage sides competing regularly in Leinster Finals and beyond.
#2
Laois / Re: 2023 National Football League Division 4
February 06, 2023, 05:33:55 PM
On Sheehan's tactics, I tend to agree with what has been said.

Bringing between 14 and 15 players back behind the ball to shore up the defence is all well and good in theory, but on the transition it leave's you with no outlet if you turn over possession.  Even if you have a couple of quick pacey players, it's still a huge ask for them to make up 40/50 yards and then kick a score.

I'd like to see us take a few more risks and leave at least 3 or 4 forwards up (which in turns pins a few more of their defenders to stay back too) at all times. I would like to think at this level, having 11/12 players clogging up central areas would still be sufficient to force the opposition to go for shots outside of the scoring zone! In turn, then at least if we turn the ball over we have some players to hit.

I also lost count with how many times our wing backs were either behind the play or in line, when we were in possession. There were numerous opportunities for the wing backs to be 15/20 yards higher which would have given us attacking overloads. It was pretty obvious that this was down to the manager leaving the brakes on.

I think overall, it was great to see Laois win the game and at times we played some lovely football especially in the first half. The quick and direct ball but with a purpose, going into the forwards was a joy to behold.

The full forward line definitely could of done with a bit more support when the ball was played in mind, they were very isolated and it was more down to individual brilliance (especially from Evan) that we were getting scores/frees.

Narrowing the gap between the half forward and full forward line will be crucial come Championship.
#3
Laois / Re: Club football managers 2022
December 16, 2022, 07:43:09 PM
Quote from: Laois fan on December 14, 2022, 08:23:27 PM
Don't agree at all the likes of port/ ballyroan have got in high profile managers as they want to win a Leinster /Laois championship .But to say they have neglected there underage is bshit  both clubs have also hired full time gdos this year and also have been two of the stronger underage clubs the last few years

My point was in general hence why I didn't name check any particular club, which I thought was pretty obvious.

The standard of the Laois Senior Championship at the moment is very poor, yet the majority of our clubs continue to spend ridiculous amounts of money on managers instead of investing in youth structures and infrastructure. Surely the main priority of every club should build from the ground up and not the other way around? When Laois were doing brilliantly at underage level in the late 90s, look at the knock on effect it had on our senior team? We were going toe to toe with the best sides in the country and our Senior Championship was imo a very good product too which helped.

A lot of clubs were just unlucky that Portlaoise for the best part of a decade were a once in a lifetime side, so unfortunately there wasn't a greater spread of county titles won by other clubs. But it still didn't take anything away from better the standard was back then compared to now.

Look at our flagship team, who are going to be in Division 4 alongside London, Carlow, Wicklow etc. An embarrassment but it's where we deserve to be.

Laois as a county are probably 10-15 years away from ever being truly competitive at senior intercounty level again and I reckon our Senior Championship is years off being what one could deem as a good product.

It's very much like the Irish Soccer Team, years of neglect at grassroots has caught up with them. Yet, while the rest of Europe had teams evolving with modern trends, our Senior Team were stuck in the dark ages.
#4
Laois / Re: Club football managers 2022
December 14, 2022, 02:03:09 PM
It really is mind blowing that so many clubs would rather shell out €10,000 - €20,000 a year on a manager than try to develop coaches from within their own club. Never mind neglecting their underage teams and leaving many coaches with the bare minimum in terms of resources like cones, bibs, footballs etc.

I wouldn't mind if you traveled the length and breath of the county, the vast majority of these sessions ran by most of these coaches are still using archaic methods.

The standard of club football in Laois is woeful for the most part, mainly due to young players being neglected of proper coaching at underage level at their local club. It beggars believe why clubs aren't doing the opposite, i.e pouring resources into their underage teams as opposed to their senior team.
#5
Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2022
August 26, 2022, 11:44:47 AM
Quote from: Tintin84 on August 26, 2022, 10:36:58 AM
Very true Ballybrittas Boy, If you remember the u21 championships years ago was mostly amalgamations teams, The Rock, Rosenallis, Mountmellick, Clonaslee, and Kilcavan they won an u21A title, I think if they tried it out with a u21 Championship style and see how that went would be great to see.

Could you imagine if Clonaslee, Rosenallis Ballyfin joined up for senior football would or could they challenge the top teams.

Saying that I think the Borris Kilcotton amalgamation is coming to an end by all accounts just word on the grape vine.

Personally speaking, I would be against seeing 4 or 5 clubs join together to create an amalgamated side especially if a couple of teams are already operating at senior level.

In an ideal world you would cap it at 3 clubs maximum per amalgamation.

This in turn would then allow a number of clubs to have a healthy number of players on each panel thus benefiting everybody.
#6
Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2022
August 25, 2022, 11:02:36 AM
Quote from: SpeculativeEffort on August 25, 2022, 09:35:32 AM
Quote from: Robbo on August 24, 2022, 01:26:48 PM
Quote from: Pugwash on August 24, 2022, 12:36:22 PM
The Laois county board need to shift the focus from League to Championship long term for starters. Would I be right in saying that any side playing Division 1 football would have played 10+ (if not more) league games this year?

Surely by removing an unhealthy amount of league games and giving players more championship games, it would be a good starting point for one.

I would echo the above statements regarding the state of the Senior Championship, half of the sides in it are cannon fodder and are only senior teams in name.

I wouldn't necessarily lay much blame at the feet of these clubs because many are small rural villages/parish teams who are merely year on year making up the numbers.

We've all lost count at how times this has been said on here by posters, that mirroring the Kerry Championship is the way to go. Until we follow suit, we will continue to have a poor product (Laois Senior Championship) that impacts the Intermediate Championship, Junior Championship and most importantly the Laois inter county team.

Lets take Paul Kingston and Evan O'Carroll, two expectational players in my opinion. No disrespect to Killeen or Crettyard but could you imagine the level of player for the most part that they're not only playing alongside but training against when the inter county season is over within their club?

Hypothetically speaking, if Killeen joined with Barrowhouse and Kilcruise to play in the Laois Senior Championship with a squad of the best 20-25 players picked. Not only would Paul be getting tested more in training but you would see his true potential a lot more on the field at club level. The same would apply to Evan if Crettyard joined with Killeshin or Ballylinan.

Again, in order to ensure clubs like Killeen, Kilcruise, Barrowhouse never die you would incorporate these clubs as separate entities in an Intermediate or Junior Championship. But allow the amalgamated sides to play in a Senior Championship under the same name they would use at Juvenile level.

Then your traditional big clubs like Portlaoise, Port, Graigue, St Josephs, Stradbally etc who are all strong enough to go solo would play in a separate Senior Championship with no amalgamations allowed. You would of course then have your big hitters playing in another Senior Championship against your amalgamations also.

1) 8 Team Laois Senior Championship (2 Groups of 4 teams) The winner represents Laois in Leinster as no amalgamated sides would be allowed.
2) 12 Team Laois Senior Championship (3 groups of 4 teams) with 4 amalgamated sides allowed. In theory you would have the 8 sides above + 4 new teams. Lowest finishing sole senior side gets relegated to intermediate.

Nah. We're not Kerry. Small county; no need for area teams.

Why don't we encourage clubs to follow likes of park, cortwood, ballyroan, clonaslee and rosneallis.invest in juvenile set-ups, build up gradually and when the time is right you'll go up.
Some of those clubs have enjoyed mutually beneficial juv arrangements that served all parties. More of that, less bed-hopping.


Divisions of 8-12 with 2xgroups of 4-6.
Do it over one year. Too many clubs will object though so need a co board to just drill it through. Maybe then when some clubs find themselves inter or even junior they'll think about parish teams and amalgamations.

The highlighted sentence is the one I have most issue with.
We have a small county but about half the county has no access to senior club football. Its even more crucial in a county like Laois to maximise all resources and have a pathway to senior club football available.

Your argument that 'park, cortwood, ballyroan, clonaslee and rosneallis.(should) invest in juvenile set-ups' is laughable as these are clubs who actually do this already. Effort is not the issue. The problem is that these clubs reach senior every couple of generations. The rest of the time their effort is the same but the population/numbers/talent is not present to sustain senior football. This is where the regional senior teams would benefit the clubs we have without forcing clubs into amalgamations.

GAA clubs have more than one aim. They are about more than just having a senior team. Of course they want to play at the highest level but very few will sacrifice their identity and social focal point for this. In a regional set-up these clubs would be promoted to senior when they are good enough however when they are not at that level their best players can stay with home club and join with other designated clubs to challenge Portlaoise, Portarlington etc. for senior championships. This would increase the quality of the championship and deepen the talent pool for our county panel.

If Kerry didnt have area teams where would David Clifford be now?
1. Playing for Kerry but Not playing with Fossa (his home club)
or
2. Playing for Fossa but frustrated and nowhere near his potential
or
3. Not playing at all?

Why are we so afraid of change?

Fantastic post.
#7
Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2022
August 24, 2022, 12:36:22 PM
The Laois county board need to shift the focus from League to Championship long term for starters. Would I be right in saying that any side playing Division 1 football would have played 10+ (if not more) league games this year?

Surely by removing an unhealthy amount of league games and giving players more championship games, it would be a good starting point for one.

I would echo the above statements regarding the state of the Senior Championship, half of the sides in it are cannon fodder and are only senior teams in name.

I wouldn't necessarily lay much blame at the feet of these clubs because many are small rural villages/parish teams who are merely year on year making up the numbers.

We've all lost count at how times this has been said on here by posters, that mirroring the Kerry Championship is the way to go. Until we follow suit, we will continue to have a poor product (Laois Senior Championship) that impacts the Intermediate Championship, Junior Championship and most importantly the Laois inter county team.

Lets take Paul Kingston and Evan O'Carroll, two expectational players in my opinion. No disrespect to Killeen or Crettyard but could you imagine the level of player for the most part that they're not only playing alongside but training against when the inter county season is over within their club?

Hypothetically speaking, if Killeen joined with Barrowhouse and Kilcruise to play in the Laois Senior Championship with a squad of the best 20-25 players picked. Not only would Paul be getting tested more in training but you would see his true potential a lot more on the field at club level. The same would apply to Evan if Crettyard joined with Killeshin or Ballylinan.

Again, in order to ensure clubs like Killeen, Kilcruise, Barrowhouse never die you would incorporate these clubs as separate entities in an Intermediate or Junior Championship. But allow the amalgamated sides to play in a Senior Championship under the same name they would use at Juvenile level.

Then your traditional big clubs like Portlaoise, Port, Graigue, St Josephs, Stradbally etc who are all strong enough to go solo would play in a separate Senior Championship with no amalgamations allowed. You would of course then have your big hitters playing in another Senior Championship against your amalgamations also.

1) 8 Team Laois Senior Championship (2 Groups of 4 teams) The winner represents Laois in Leinster as no amalgamated sides would be allowed.
2) 12 Team Laois Senior Championship (3 groups of 4 teams) with 4 amalgamated sides allowed. In theory you would have the 8 sides above + 4 new teams. Lowest finishing sole senior side gets relegated to intermediate.

#8
Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2022
July 26, 2022, 06:32:02 PM
Arles Kileen are nailed on to get relegated, they're a Junior team in every sense but in name.

90% of their team against Port the other evening were over the age of 34/35 and even age aside, the majority were nowhere near mobile/fit enough to be playing Senior. There are very dark times ahead for that club, Kilcruise to their credit have a crop of about 10-15 young lads between Inter/Junior B so they'll be fine long term you'd imagine.

Its hard to see anyone that will topple Port this year anyway, opposition aside the other evening the pace that they attack at is brilliant and how they transition to defend when out of possession shows huge hunger and fitness levels.

#9
Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2022
July 24, 2022, 11:44:00 AM
Since Thursday evening we've had a host of one sided encounters that have done nothing for both the winning sides and the losing sides.

There are about 8 teams, maybe 10 at an extreme push who you could deem Senior standard but yet we persist with a bad product of 16 teams?

We either whittle the numbers down or we mirror what they do in Kerry and have two Senior Championships.

1. Individual Clubs operating in their own separate 8-10 team Senior Championship (the winner represents Laois in Leinster)
2. Individual Clubs + Amalgamations (smaller rural clubs pooling together) to create a Senior Championship

Drastic action needs to be done now before we fall even further behind at both Underage and Senior intercounty level.
#10
Laois / Re: Tailteann Cup 2022
June 01, 2022, 04:30:08 PM
I think it's a major pity that the GAA didn't have the foresight to play double headers for the Tailteann Cup, it would have at least bumped up attendances and created more of an atmosphere at the games.

Or even play some of the games before a provincial final/All Ireland quarters/semi/final etc, the players would feed off that.

Even go completely left wing and have a game on before a Hurling match, do whatever is necessary to drum up greater interest.
#11
Laois / Re: The Future for Laois Football
April 13, 2022, 03:59:08 PM
Quote from: Chrimtain on April 11, 2022, 10:12:01 AM
Two Laois under 14 football development teams were well beaten by Offaly at the weekend. No reasons to be optimistic for the the future, as of yet.

And therein lies the problem, being results focused at under 14 level is absolutely ridiculous.

Development, Development, Development is all that should matter.

You can get hammered in a game and still pick out a number of positives if you're not blinded by the scoreline.
#12
Laois / Re: 2022 National Football League
March 11, 2022, 04:00:39 PM
I disagree saying The O'Byrne was a false dawn, with all due respect it's nothing more than a pre season competition and it shouldn't have been an indicator (results wise) in terms of how our league campaign was going to pan out.

Staying in Division 3 should always have been our number 1 priority and it should remain that way too. I'd actually rather see Laois stay in Division 3 and build slowly than get promoted upto Division 2 with the likelihood of us being relegated.

Before we all get carried away and start calling Limerick, Antrim, Fermanagh etc the second coming of the Kerry team of the 80s or the Dublin team of the 10s they're not. There is very little between Laois and the above, but what's the shame in saying maybe that they're a little ahead of us at this moment?

As I said on here a number of months, let's not focus on short-termism or worry about anyone else. Laois football has been at a very low-ebb now for a while, success doesn't come overnight and I firmly believe the only way is up, but it will take a number of years to get to where we want to be.

Predicting a 2 point win on Sunday against Wicklow.
#13
Laois / Re: The Future for Laois Football
January 25, 2022, 01:27:15 PM
I think that's a huge mistake in my opinion.

There are 16 Senior teams in name only operating in Laois at the moment, I would say at a push you would have 10 maybe 11 competitive sides and the other 5 or 6 are Intermediate standard at best.

Our long term focus should be on the implementation of a Senior Championship like they have in Kerry where small rural clubs amalgamate to form sides capable of competing at the highest level but also allow them to keep their identity and play in Intermediate/Junior Championships solo.

Shorten the league calendar, give teams 5/6 maximum and have two Championship's at senior level. One without amalgamations and another with, keep the same format for Intermediate and Junior etc.

It would stop all of this nonsense whereby club players start training in January to play Championship games in August.
#14
Laois / Re: O'Byrne Cup 2022
January 22, 2022, 05:25:43 PM
A lot of positives can be taken from not only today's game but the O'Byrne Cup on the whole and it's really worked out well for the management team to have gotten to see the squad over 5 games.

It was very evident that a number of younger more inexperienced players especially will need at least another year if not two to bulk up where we can physically look to match sides allover the park, but that will come.

On the game itself, when Dublin went to 14 I'm not sure why we persisted with the long kick out? Or at least if we were going long to create an overload somewhere instead of going straight down the middle more often than not.

I admired how we tried to kick the ball into the full forward line as early as possible, but the constant high lofted ball gave our forwards very little chance to get shots away. By the time the ball landed near head height we were often bottled up, again maybe when you're playing with an extra man would going through the hand a bit more not have been more logical? Or if we were going direct, pop the ball into space as opposed to in the clouds.

Looking to the future, staying up in Div 3 would be great but I wouldn't be too fussed if we didn't. What I would like to see is Billy sticking with this group of players (especially the younger lads) and get them all to fully buy into the set up and let's try and build for the long term. Short termism is no good and once lessons are learned throughout 2022, who's to say come 2023/2024 with the further emergence of fresh faces we can't at least look to get back into being top 3 in Leinster.
#15
Laois / Re: O'Byrne Cup 2022
January 10, 2022, 02:29:05 PM
Quote from: Butch Cassidy on January 10, 2022, 12:53:38 PM
Sunday shows you can't just put a new lad in without the required levels of S&C. This cab take a number of years. Ideally you'd bring lads in from minor/u20 to a development panel so they get the same training/S&C as the seniors so its a smooth transition.

Only issue I would have is the goals that were conceded. At this level, you should not be conceding 6 goals and that falls on Billy to have them better prepared.

Great point re the S&C especially in today's game whereby your athleticism is as important as your technical ability.

Something that I would love to see happening is Laois GAA giving all of our clubs templates that mirror exactly what our county teams are doing in terms of S&C. Not just in the off season, but in season too as lot of players nowadays will use the gym all year round.

You could also look at sending clubs lots of information in terms of sessions plans and stuff for kids to do at home to improve basic technical skills etc.

Creating a stronger link between club and county is absolutely vital, especially in the world we live in.