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there will be no extra draw for the semi finals.....the path is already decided, ie....winners Gp A play the winners of the tie involving 3rd Gp A and 2nd Gp B, in one semi and winners Gp B play the winners of 3rd Gp B and 2nd Gp A in the other one.

Hence the draw is Camross V Borris/C Ballacolla, and Ballinakill v Abbeyleix/Rathd Errill.

That's not the case at all, the path isn't decided, seeding applies in the semi-final draw. If Clough-Ballacolla and Rathdowney-Errill win then it goes to an open draw, and likewise if Abbeyleix and Borris-Kilcotton win. If one team from each group wins in the quarter-final, RE and BK for example, then it is predetermined, because the seeding means RE can't play Camross again, and BK can't play Ballinakill.

Yeah, fair play to him, some achievement. I can't imagine we've had too many world champions in a professional sport from Laois.

Hopefully we get a few good selectors in with him. In both football and hurling it's been a battle to get Laois men to commit to being selectors, you'd have to imagine there are few lads out there that would be interested in working with him. Maybe Jackman, even though he was on the selection committee, could be an option. He's coaching down with Castlecomer and seems to be big into that side of things. Might be no harm to have him involved. Arien Delaney either, if he was open to it.

Brennan will get the chance to see every senior team in the championship at least twice now too, which will help him get a handle on what's out there in the county. He might be enough of a draw to keep Healy commuting for another year as well, although we can't keep expecting him to do that. I don't know how he's done it this long.

I hope it goes well, best of luck to him.

County board need to appoint an S&C coach to oversee all levels in both hurling and football.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, whether you want one S&C coach to implement a programme and be on-site for every squad in both codes, or someone to work with all the other S&C coaches and 'oversee' it in that regard?

It has often been said that one S&C coach should be appointed to take charge of all county teams directly, but I got chatting to an S&C coach a few years ago and asked him about that, and he said it's totally unfeasible. The workload would be enormous and it would be unrealistic to expect them to look after all squads in both codes, because they'd be working 7 nights a week.

What he put to me as the alternative is a High Performance Director, someone to co-ordinate between all the different coaches being used by the county teams, to make sure best practice is being implemented etc. They could dip in and out of each age group then, and when the county season is over then they would have more time to meet players or make sure they are sticking to whatever programme they are on.

Again, that all sounds great written down, but finding the money to pay someone and finding the right candidate would be tricky. You'd need someone with a background in nutrition or diet as well, because that's a big part of a proper S&C regime too. We definitely need to up our game on that aspect of development squads though, it's frightening to see the difference between Laois players and Dublin/Kildare/Meath at minor level in football. It's almost reckless to be sending some of our lads out to try compete with them.

I think if the county board want to push hurling in the football only areas, they need to set up 2 clubs. One to cover Port, Emo, Courtwood, Annanough and maybe Stradbally. The other to cover Joseph's, Ballylinan parish, Killeshin and Graigue.

The second area is more or less covered by Slieve Margy, and Graigue do a small bit of hurling already.

To be honest, I'd sooner see the county board push hurling in Portlaoise first, before trying to get it going in other football areas.

Looking at him last night, I think O'Carroll will have to be moved into either full-forward or centre-forward, he only really seemed to bother when he got the ball in hand and could run forward. They may as well keep him close to goal because he doesn't have the work rate for midfield. If I was a Crettyard man I'd have been disappointed with him last night tbh.

If the Ballinakill lads had played a bit more football this year, Crettyard could have won that game. Cha missed 1-2 or 1-3 there in the second half, Sean Downey looked rusty as well. Maher was quiet for them too whereas he normally directs the play for them. If they re-jig the team, they should be grand.

Yeah, happy to.

What he's really saying is this - 'I shit my pants again playing on the trampoline and my mammy says I can't go see the new Teen Titans movie in the cinema, so I'm mad about everything'

I think that's more or less it, in a nutshell.

When you say 'back living in Laois', does that mean you lived here before and played for a club here?

If so, if you transferred out within the last two years, I think you have to transfer back to your original club. If you're gone longer than that, you can transfer back to whoever you like.

If you transfer to a hurling club that doesn't field any football team, you can apply to play football as an isolated player if there is no football on offer in the club/parish. That rule is fairly loosely applied, and there are many variables at play, for example - who you are, who your father is, who you're related to, are you any good, the mood in the room at any given county board meeting, the gulf stream, the polar ice caps, brexit, the french air traffic controllers strike, and of course, whether you prefer lyons or barrys tea.

I hope that sheds some light on the issue for you!

I know you're not trying to be blunt, and I'm not trying to be blunt here either - this isn't soccer, we can't go out and buy new players.

I agree we're not producing players like we used to, no one could argue with that, but if the lads coming through aren't at that level now, we have to put more work into them to get them up to the level required. We don't have any other option.

If you read what I wrote, you'll see that I never said any of them would cut it at senior level now either, but if we work on them then some of them will. I don't see how we progress as a county, in the short term, without doing that. Long term, we need to improve what we're doing at development squad level, but that won't solve any problems for John Sugrue or whoever is Laois manager in 2-3 years time when he starts losing players to retirement.

I'd like to see Adam Ryan involved too, we've struggled to nail down a left-half back this year and I think he could be very good with a run of training and games under Sugrue. I don't know if he'd have the interest though, he only transferred back to Port this year and hadn't played much while he was away.

We need more options across the backline, in the half-forward line, and probably need to develop a midfielder over the next 2-3 years, and a full-back in the next 1-2 years. Not many candidates for those areas jump out from recent minor or U-20 teams, which will be a problem in a few years time.

Sean Byrne from Port looked a good prospect a couple of years ago as a defender, but I think he's been injured for a while. Sean Moore needs to bulk himself up, James Kelly from Joseph's wasn't helped by being played as a corner-back, think he's better suited to further out the field, a possible roving wing-forward to my mind. Brian Daly, Tyrell from Camross, Diarmuid Whelan, Colin Slevin, Ronan Coffey are a few younger lads that have looked good at times, but need a lot of work to get up to the level required.

Would be hoping David Holland and Chris Finn push on next year, it would allow Attride to move out to the half-back line.

This panel should be in a position to return en masse for 2019, there's at least a year left in everyone, so we have a bit of time to develop players, but it still needs to be treated with a bit of urgency.

know one to stop big Donnie

I know Mueller is trying to stop big Donnie anyway, presume that's what you're talking about?

Graduated last year, spent time in NY, not sure he's still there though.

He's back but injured himself while abroad, only getting back to a bit of training now

Donie is back near enough a month at this stage. I can't imagine Sugrue hasn't said it to him in person already. If he's not getting the reaction he needs out of him, then he has to try whatever means available to get him going. It's not like he slated him anyway, he just said he needs to work harder in training.

More luck to Billy if he's the chosen candidate. I'd have my doubts about Shaggy and Phelan on a selection committee, but Byron is no mug, and if he impressed him enough then I'll give him a chance. I wouldn't have even thought of him to take over tbh, but if he could win two games in that group he'll have done well.

The bigger issue around the appointment, to my mind, is that we're not developing our own coaches any more and bringing them through with the development squads. Every time a development squad comes through to these grades, we have to go looking for a new manager for them, when in reality, whoever has had them since U-13 should be developing at the same pace as the players, and be fit to stay on as manager. We're probably over reliant on the GDAs in that regard.

I don't think Portlaoise, or the other clubs in the parish for that matter, are even scratching the surface of the amount of players that could play GAA. All of their grounds are outside the town, so the only ones who play are the ones who can get a lift out. A club within walking distance for a few hundred children has a great chance of attracting numbers, in my opinion anyway, so long as it is run properly. There are a lot of non-irish in Portlaoise who don't know the first thing about the GAA or have the interest, but that's not to say their children wouldn't like to play a game if it's on their doorstep, fun and well-organised, especially over the summer when there's no soccer, rugby or basketball. It's a massive task to try and get it setup and find people to run it, but it's definitely worth a try. The numbers in the primary schools in the town alone would suggest that.