Laois Intermediate Football Championship 2018

Started by The PRO, July 11, 2018, 11:19:26 AM

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Jd

I've said Courtwood all along and am going to stay with them, they were only good in this match and still held a strong Portlaoise side at arms length. I have seen them at full cry and they are a very good team. Mountmellick had way too much for rosenallis and were at probably no more than half pace. Can't figure out what happened to rosenallis but they were very poor. Still the mm keeper made three or four great saves and stopped a penalty so if they offer up chances like that to Courtwood they could be in trouble. Mountmellick will be favourites but I think if Donoher is as good as he has been all year then Courtwood will sneak it

High Fielder

The Portlaoise Intermediates gave the most timid performance of the weekend. In a county like ours, and with so many Senior teams, it amazes me that Portloiase haven't got a second senior team. I'd go as far as to say that there is a failure within the club if they can't achieve this. I think we can all accept that Portlaoise are not for splitting (I certainly don't want that anyway) but we as a county do need more from them. They are after all the biggest club in Laois by far. This isn't meant as a criticism of Portlaoise, but I think it is obvious that their Intermediate team are under achieving. I also think they have players who are more than capable of playing Senior, but for whatever reason don't. From what I saw against Courtwood, there wasn't one player capable of making the step up, and that can't be right. No pressure at all on the first team. If no pressure is coming from within, and there's little coming from the rest of the county, you would wonder how Portlaoise can improve. I think they need to do something, because for whatever reason, they're not catching the imagination of their own players, or for that matter, their own town. Again, no offence intended.

Jd

There's no need to split Portlaoise just form a new club at the northern end. I heard a disturbing fact that the primary school up that end of town has over 700 pupils and not one plays Gaelic games with Portlaoise. Don't know the name of the school.  Small rural clubs have schools with 100 or less yet are in developing ties with all kids and trying to get as many playing as possible. 0 out of 700 is a scandal in my opinion !

Butch Cassidy

How is that possible? Do they not have a school team?

Jd

Possibly schools but not with Portlaoise club..... Only got it second hand so maybe it's being overstated but sounds like there's not too many coming from there. Maybe a town member could clarify it cos it sounds unbelievable to me too

BobbyBoucherJr

Quote from: Jd on September 18, 2018, 11:40:27 AM
There's no need to split Portlaoise just form a new club at the northern end. I heard a disturbing fact that the primary school up that end of town has over 700 pupils and not one plays Gaelic games with Portlaoise. Don't know the name of the school.  Small rural clubs have schools with 100 or less yet are in developing ties with all kids and trying to get as many playing as possible. 0 out of 700 is a scandal in my opinion !
That is incorrect, i know a good few from that school that play with the town

Don Draper

Quote from: Jd on September 18, 2018, 02:33:52 PM
Possibly schools but not with Portlaoise club..... Only got it second hand so maybe it's being overstated but sounds like there's not too many coming from there. Maybe a town member could clarify it cos it sounds unbelievable to me too
I presume this is Knockmay? It's not 0, but it's at a pathetically low level. Portlaoise aren't serving the town. Moving out to Rathleague meant they basically abandoned large parts of the town. Speaking to teachers working in town schools they will tell you that many students don't know what Gaelic games are and a huge amount have little or no basic skills.

That's where we are. Fixing it will take radical steps.

Laoiseabu

Jaysus if Portlaoise start doing things arseways then I've really seen it all in this county . Portlaoise is our largest population centre and everything has to be done to have as many youngsters interested in GAA as possible, Not just for Portlaoise as a club but for Laois as a county . If Portlaoise stopped producing players it would be a disaster for Laois football and the Laois teams. Portlaoise should be consistently in years to come be producing players of intercounty quality like a conveyor belt in a factory . Also I notice Portlaoise seem to have shocking support at all their games ??

Jd

Maybe Portlaoise should try employ a full time coach and get into the schools I know it'll cost a lot but the benefits would be huge. I'm sure there's grants from all sources even government would chip in of it could be proven that they were keeping  a definite number of kids away from antisocial behaviour/drugs . Also there's at least two school principals from Portlaoise working in rural schools and pushing football big time. Cyril Duggan has emo school flying and Tommy Fitzgerald had balladams competing well. Hes in a bigger school now in Rath so if a football agenda is pushed in both then st Paul's  and  Courtwood and Emo will benefit. Could you imagine them working in the schools in town and the benefits it would reap for Portlaoise and Laois.

High Fielder

With roughly a third of the population in the county residing there, it is key to Laois (and Portlaoise) that we maximise the town's potential. I don't think that is happening at the moment. There will only ever be 15 places on the Portlaoise senior team, and it looks to me like those outside of the Senior panel take a rather indifferent approach. I must stress again that I am not interested in splitting up the town, but it seems to me like there is a disconnect between the club and the general population. And that's a hard one to work out because on any given day when there's kids' training, there's an ocean of kids in Rathleague. This is a club to be proud of, so the lack of supporters is puzzling.

I get the feeling from the CB that they'd be happy to see Portlaoise come back to the field because that would mean their own clubs could be competitive. I take the opposing view. Whatever potential is in Portlaoise must be harnessed, and the other clubs need to react in a way that allows them to competitive. The CB and Portlaoise need to get into those schools and start creating interest. Portlaoise as a club need to reach out to their community and get them waving the flag in O Moore Park. They'd be a formidable outfit in Leinster if they could really drum up good support. The side effects for Laois in the long run could only be positive surely?

SpeculativeEffort

If Portlaoise harness their power and are not split up beforehand then we will have our very own version of Dublin only worse.

Portlaoise needs 2/3 clubs backed and funded by Laois co board and Croke Park. If run properly they would all be competitive and Laois would benefit in the long run. This will need a hardline stance from county board and people who will be decisive and forward thinking. Its a huge project but it has to be done.

High Fielder

I don't think there is any appetite for that. Portlaoise would resist it and I can't see too many committing to that sort of project. There is however no reason why they can't have two or three highly functioning teams. I think it's pitiful with all their resources that they can't win Intermediate. There are reasons for that obviously, and maybe cash flow is one of them. For instance, do they even have a management team in place for the Intermediate team? The impression I always get is that it's a cobbled together outfit made up of whoever is interested or available. Personally I'd want more from them. In my opinion, there is no reason why Portlaoise can't supply a minimum of 30 senior standard footballers. Laois needs as much as it can get from Portlaoise and forget this notion of trying to bring them back to the field

Laoiseabu

It sickens me that as soon as a team starts becoming dominant the first question people ask is " ohh should we split them into two clubs" Portlaoise should be focusing on winning a Leinster this year beacause a Leinster title is badly due in Portlaoise ,especially for the size of the club. I can't see Portlaoise being split in two either , Tullamore has one club , so has Naas, it's not uncommon .

SCFC

Quote from: High Fielder on September 17, 2018, 01:44:38 PM
The Portlaoise Intermediates gave the most timid performance of the weekend. In a county like ours, and with so many Senior teams, it amazes me that Portloiase haven't got a second senior team. I'd go as far as to say that there is a failure within the club if they can't achieve this. I think we can all accept that Portlaoise are not for splitting (I certainly don't want that anyway) but we as a county do need more from them. They are after all the biggest club in Laois by far. This isn't meant as a criticism of Portlaoise, but I think it is obvious that their Intermediate team are under achieving. I also think they have players who are more than capable of playing Senior, but for whatever reason don't. From what I saw against Courtwood, there wasn't one player capable of making the step up, and that can't be right. No pressure at all on the first team. If no pressure is coming from within, and there's little coming from the rest of the county, you would wonder how Portlaoise can improve. I think they need to do something, because for whatever reason, they're not catching the imagination of their own players, or for that matter, their own town. Again, no offence intended.
Just one thing. They don't ever really seem to bother "holding lads back" for the second team. On Sunday they used 20 players and also had Cahillane and Glynn not togged.
If they really wanted to go for the intermediate, they could probably win the senior using 18 players!

Jd

I talk to a lot of club members in Portlaoise and most of them would have no problems with a second club being formed. The kilminchy project failed cos they tried to set up adult teams before they had juvenile systems in place. Also the lack of a field hampered them big time. With proper planning and support a Portlaoise north team could be formed and start with juveniles. A little bit of success and suddenly people will want to be involved. 5 or six years and you then introduce adult football and then they're up and running. They would have to have a permanent ground and a lot of co board support but it's possible. I remember we brought a team to play an U10 blitz and Portlaoise were involved they togged 3 teams with over 40 lads involved. We had 24 ...... by the time we met at u16 they were down to 18 and we had 22. There's always a drop off but maybe the smaller clubs work harder to keep players than big clubs who have an embarrassment of riches