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This absolutely stinks. What sort of morals are being taught by teachers who are prepared to stoop this low? If they had any conscience they would hand back the cup. Hiding behind "Health and Safety" is just shameful.

Knowing how hard it is to keep an established club going, it is likely that all the passionate hurling people in Portlaoise are working hard to keep the Portlaoise club going, or have got burned out and have walked away. To expect Portlaoise to split itself in two or three would be unrealistic. Who from any club is going to leave that club, to establish another club in order to compete with your own club? The only way it would work would be to get people not involved with Portlaoise to try set up a club independently. That would be a huge undertaking and good luck to anyone who takes it on. I personally can't imagine leaving my own club to start a rival club. Until you have an Arles type split to force the issue it is likely to remain so.
Possibly if the County Board were to canvass the Portlaoise area to see if there was an appetite for this, it could start, but you would be looking at putting together a management team to get it up and running before handing over to a new club committee. How you get people to leave their own clubs to do this would be the problem.

With regard to the specifics of the current u17's, if you look at last year's u16 championship, only Castletown Slieve Bloom and Rathdowney Errill were really competitive. Clough Ballacolla were joined with Abbeyleix and Borris Kilcotton, Clonad, Ballinakill and Park Ratheniska were in the B. I'm not running down these clubs, but the numbers were just not there in the clubs. People must have been holding off having babies in 2000! I don't think any Castletown Slieve Bloom players were present last night for whatever, and one of our own best hurlers didn't go because he couldn't be arsed.

In contrast, last year's and this year's u14s have been very competitive, and there is a very strong bunch in the u14 development squad this year. Whether these will progress in the next few years remains to be seen, but at least it's looking promising.

We could do with some more GDAs as both Andrew and Ciaran are putting in serious hours including evenings and weekends and I can't fault their efforts.

Seven lads named to start never turned up tonight. Two turned up for training on Saturday. The lads who did play worked hard but were up against it from the start. Andrew Kavanagh is doing his best to get this going but lads just don't care.
In fairness, the Tipp lads have a realistic prospect of All Ireland medals to aim for in the future but what have our lads got to inspire them?

Fantastic to see Cahir Healy prowling on the sideline like a lion in water carrier's clothing, urging the lads on. By the way he was sprinting in and out with water he should be back in action soon. No sitting in the dugout nursing himself.
Picky has yet to rediscover his form but I have no doubt he will hit his stride soon. Hopefully against Wexford.
Mark Kavanagh came on near the end and scored a sublime point and looks very sharp.
Once again we struggled a bit against fourteen men. We never seem to know what to do with the extra man. Dropping him into the backs just seems to unsettle things. Why we don't play the spare man in the forwards and really hammer the opposition never ceases to amaze me.
Anyway, job done and on we go. Brilliant support from the fans who waited for the warm down to finish and clapped the lads off the field. It felt very good to be a Laoisman walking out of the ground.

Very good display by Laois u14s this morning against Wexford winning by 5 points. Good strength in depth in this squad.

Great quality hurling on show at half time on Saturday night from the Cumann na mBunscoil kids. A lot of good catches and intense tackling considering these lads wouldn't have played together previously. Just goes to show there is talent out there in our underage players.

Fergal's is and has always been a small school with around 300 or so pupils. A lot of other former vocational schools have amalgamated and become much bigger schools, eg Mountrath. We lose lads to Mountrath, Heywood, Johnstown and Templemore from what would have been traditionally Fergal's territory, so are picking from a very small pool of players. Not withstanding that, we could have/should have beaten Sutton. In a game of two halves our lads didn't score enough with the wind in the first half. In the North final we beat Kilcormac who had hammered what was much the same team two years ago so there has been progression. Clough Ballacolla and Borris Kilcotton have had a few years with very small numbers as their taking part in the B competitions at u16 shows and this has had a big impact.
   The future is brighter however as the u14 team is still in competition and looks very strong with big wins over Kilcormac and Roscrea lately. Joe Dollard from Galmoy has joined the teaching staff and will be a great support to Mr. Conroy who has ploughed a lonely furrow since Mr. Casey stepped back a couple of years ago.
    Laois Minors looked very poor last week and we may have a drought for a few years. However last years u14 championship was the strongest for years and we look to have a lot of talent coming through from u12 and u14 at the moment. This year's u14 development squad is the strongest I have seen for a few years, so there is hope for the future.

Johnny Casey is still teaching although I think this may be his last year. Sean Conroy has taken on the mantle of managing the hurling teams. Fergal's has always punched above it's weight but the growth of community schools has made it harder to compete. Fergal's has about 300 pupils while Mountrath has over 700. Heywood and Johnstown also encroach on what would once have been Fergal's territory.  We hope our Junior team can progress in the Leinster C competition. Having won the North section we now face the South Leinster winners.

Mountrath won this at a canter today. 4-21 to 2-9. St. Fergal's are picking from a very small pool of players. Best of luck to Mountrath. I think they play Johnstown next which will be a much stronger test.

St. Fergal's won the North Leinster Junior C hurling final yesterday beating Kilcormac 3-11 to 2-11. They came from nine points down at one stage in the first half in a great display of hurling. This is quite a young team as at least four of them were hurling u14 this year. They now meet the winners of the South Leinster. No idea who yet.