2015 Laois Senior Hurling

[blueandwhite1]

I would be worried about the tendency of Laois to adopt defensive style tactics - it sets the wrong tone in the team and was the reason we nearly blew it against Carlow. I hope we have learned. It was quite similar against Waterford in the second half in the league. Best defence in hurling is to attack and keep the scoreboard moving, and to hit hard when lads are running at you.

[portlaoisekid]

I have expected Laois to improve as the year as gone on and tbh we have not so far. Maybe I'm looking at this through rose tinted classes but I still believe we are playing well within ourselves, to say the least, and with Sunday predicted to be a dry and quite warm day I really feel we could click and the fact its effectively knock out should drive us on further with our performance levels. 

For the effort thats gone into Chedders reign by all those involved we have to produce something from here on in this year. We have no doubt made progress under Chedders reign but IMO at the start of this year to progress would have been staying in div 1b, topping the provincial group and beating Offaly and hugely consistent performance levels in the qualifiers. I still think that achievable albeit it could be Wexford in the championship if we qualify . Of course losing to Westmeath is possible and it would be disaster for us.

My team to play Westmeath would be

Rowland
JA Delaney
Healy
Stapleton
Joe Fitzpatrick
Whelan
Tom Delaney
Paddy Purcell
Jimmy Walsh
Keenan
Joe Campion
Hyland
King
Maher
Tommy Fitzgerald

[redsetanta]

Conroy has to be pushing for a start. Would he get in ahead of King or Tommy? King would make an impression off the bench I feel and Tommy less so. I would start Tommy personally so maybe bring Conroy in for King.

[redsetanta]

Cha should be one of the first names on the teamsheet.

[Tobias]

Cha is a no brainer. I'd start Joe campion at wing back again, I think he did well there the last day and hopefully he will settle into the position. Tom dleaned hasn't featured much and I'd say it's his potential to be sent off is a risk the management are not willing to take. I'd go with the same midfield again, with a dry day in store these two lads can pick off scores from out the field, I'm sure they have been tutored on their defensive duties over the past couple of weeks. I'd prob bring in Ben convoy for scully to give him the chance he has earned.
Regarding the defensive tactics...don't be so quick to knock them. Ok it didn't work against Carlow and i don't think we should adopt it against teams like Carlow. However don't forget how close we got to beating galway over the past two years by dropping a man back...would we have got as close if we went 15 on 15 I really don't think so. Against Waterford in the league we actually did ok in the first half playing defensively, trailing by only 3 at half time we lost cha to a red card 5 mins into second half which gad a huge bearing on the game. If we progress past Sunday we might be best served by playing a sweeper.

[merman]

Huge game on Sunday; I'm not convinced Antrim will beat Carlow (especially in Carlow) so a win might well be enough to see us top the group.
Unfortunately, I think we might need to rely on such a result as I don't believe we will beat Westmeath by 9 points. There hasn't been much between the teams over the last 5 years and they are on a definite high. Allied to that, they have a competitive club championship and have consistently produced good club teams as well as decent minor teams.
This could well go down to the wire and I would take any kind of a win to be honest...

I don't think we will see wholesale changes but for what it's worth, this is what I'd like to see...

Rowland
Healy
Whelan
Delaney
Fitzpatrick
Walsh
Delaney
Purcell
Maher
Cha
Campion
Hyland
Conroy
King
Fitzgerald

[portlaoisekid]

Totally forgot cha Dwyer...  .... I'd have him in for sure

[Tobias]

Merman?.would you leave zane out??

[merman]

Merman?.would you leave zane out??

On current form, I would!
He is without question one of the most talented hurlers in Laois but he hasn't shown that, in my opinion, this year!

[G@@]

Best of Luck to the team today, hopefully we will see a performance we all know they are well capable of.

[G@@]

Great result. Thanks Cha and Carlow too!

[burdizzo]

Absolutely, well done Cha - his goal obviously the turning point. However, in fairness, Westmeath weren't too bad. Certainly better than Carlow, and Laoise dug it out in the end. It looked dicey after Murtagh got his goal, though I thought Healy really improved after that lapse. Things may have been a little easier, only Zane was having a bit of a nightmare from the frees, and Alan Kelly - again! - would hardly give them one at all. With any luck, he won't be reffing the Offaly game. I'd imagine Maher will start that game, too. Hopefully Ross is all right, though it looks like he was badly hurt enough. He was playing pretty well.

[drici]

https://www.gaa.ie/content/documents/publications/miscellaneous/CCCC%20Proposal%202014%20to%202016.pdf

1st Plays Offaly
2nd Plays Wexford
3rd Plays Winner of Christy Ring with the Winner of that being in Leinster Championship and the Loser being in the Christy Ring next year
4th Plays in/Relegated to Christy Ring next year

Missed this.

[merman]

We are exactly where we wanted to be.

The lads showed what their capable of but only for about 15 minutes; thankfully that was enough to see us past Westmeath. We'll need closer to 70 to give us a shot against Offaly.

It was a strange game. We started poorly and it was a point-each after about 10 minutes with no hurling done in either side. The first half, in general, was a putrid affair with Westmeath tacking on a few late scores to pull 4points clear.
Westmeath looked good; their centre and full backs were hurling oceans of ball and their midfield and half-back line were well on top. They could have been further ahead in truth.

The second half continued in a similar vein with Brendan Murtagh's goal putting Westmeath well-clear and at that stage I really feared we were looking at the prospect of relegation!

Then, within minutes we were level! Westmeath missed a simple free before Picky caught a brilliant long ball and fed Cha who buried us back into the game. The crowd woke up! Suddenly our tails were up and Westmeath were in disarray; Murtagh went off injured and without playing brilliantly, we found ourselves kicking for home with nice scores from Roddy and Hyland; before the crowd erupted again with Cha nailing a beauty of a point from long range.
The game petered out somewhat with Westmeath correctly getting 2 players sent-off and then the real negative of the day, Ross King's injury. It looked nasty, I suspect a cruciate, though I hope I'm wrong!

Credit must go to Cheddar and the entire panel.
We're not playing as well as we can but its a small sign of progress to see us qualify top of a group without getting out of 3rd gear.

Offaly in two weeks. Huge game; huge opportunity!

We are exactly where we wanted to be!

[Giovanni]

Great to get out of there with a win on Sunday. Westmeath were very strong all the way down the middle and, to be honest, were better than I thought they'd be.

We obviously have some good hurlers but for most of the game I thought Westmeath's motivation levels seemed higher than ours. They just looked like they wanted it more. I know it's easy to sit in the stand making judgements like that but, given the importance of the game, I thought we'd have been right in their faces from the first whistle and it wasn't like that. Had it not been for bad shooting, they could have been out of sight at half time.

Anyway, we have the opportunity now to improve again against Offaly. I'd say the performance levels will have to increase substantially to have any chance. I think the match is in Portlaoise, right?