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Promoted sides akready get a higher seeding than the teams they replaced.
Donegal and Armagh were seeded above Ros and Monaghan this year.

I know that but they are all still in All-Ireland Championship due to current structures-far less jeopardy and as a consequence excitement. I'm just reiterating it so that people who may not be sure/know this can see how an alternatively structured championship would play out. Imagine Group One comprising of Leinster champions, Ulster champions, revamped Tailteann Cup winners and top league finishing non-provincial championship winning team and Group two comprising of Munster champions, Connaught champions and second and third place league finishing non-provincial championship winning teams. You could have in Group 1-Dublin, Donegal, Armagh and Derry and in Group 2-Galway, Kerry, Mayo and Tyrone. Play groups on alternative weeks so that you have two big games to enjoy each weekend and they can be previewed, analysed and discussed properly each week.   

I think a simple tweak would improve the whole GAA year.

All-Ireland should be restricted to 8 counties. Four provincial winners, (a revamped) Tailteann Cup winners and the next three top placed teams in the league. Two groups of four with top team in each group going through to semi-final and second and third place into quarter finals. These groups would be far more competitive as you have the top 8 teams playing off against each other each week. It would also remove the nonsense we have now of three rounds of group games to reduce the All-Ireland from 16 to 12 teams. It would make the league highly competitive if you brought in a rule that top two teams in division 2 place higher than bottom two teams in division 1 for seeding purposes. Therefore, the likes of Monaghan and Roscommon would have missed out this year. Galway as they finished 6th would have had to win Connaught to stay in the All-Ireland championship (which they did) but it would have added even more excitement and jeopardy to the Connaught Final with the stakes raised knowing the consequences of losing. 

I would then have a second and third national competition for the remaining 25 counties. Tailteann Cup for next 12 teams and a third tier competition for next 12 teams plus New York.

The second tier competition this year would have comprised of Roscommon, Monaghan, Cavan, Cork, Meath, Louth, Fermanagh, Kildare, Down, Westmeath, Clare and Sligo. All very evening matched teams with the carrot and incentive of winning the competition knowing that there is a guaranteed place in the All-Ireland Championship for next year.   

For the third tier you have Antrim, Offaly, Wicklow, Limerick, Laois, Leitrim, Wexford, Longford, Carlow, Tipperary, London, Waterford and New York to be added in a knock-out qualifier game. A criticism of the Tailteann Cup is that with a couple of bigger counties dropping into it, it means that smaller counties such as Leitrim, Carlow etc. still do not have realistic chances of ever winning the competition. In this competition any of the teams named who manage to get a bit of form and momentum has a serious crack at winning it and gaining automatic promotion to the higher grade for the following year.

In this model all of the teams are playing teams of a similar standard, have realistic ambitions of winning a national title at championship level and with an opportunity to advance and move up if they gain success.         

Think it's rotated as Tipp played Offaly last year

I guess the flip side is if we did manage to somehow get past Cork we play the losers of Kilkenny v Dublin instead of the losers of Limerick v Clare.

Sure we're practically into the All-Ireland semi-final at this stage. I like how we are taking it for granted that we will defeat Offaly and play Cork in the preliminary quarter-final.

Very surprising to lose how we did. I thought some of the fringe players would tear into that game looking to make an impression and push for selection come the Joe McDonagh Final. I hope we don't follow Offaly's example of last season when they threw their final group game only to be sucker punched in the final by a fantastic Carlow performance. This loss might take away some of the optimism and momentum that we had built up in recent weeks. It might also act to refocus minds. Hopefully the latter.

It's incredible to see a county the size of Offaly win an u20 football All-Ireland playing some outstanding and free flowing football and now they have a crop of young hurlers coming through that are playing an exciting brand of hurling to watch and have the ability and potential to win the All-Ireland against either Tipp or Cork. Tradition and getting the right people involved plays a huge part and with this Offaly side they have both of those in abundance. Our U20s are a good side and this Offaly team obliterated them by showing greater conviction, confidence, coaching, skill, drive and determination right from the very first minute when they played us. They beat us up in every facet of the game. We could badly do with bottling some of that ourselves. 

McNulty has recognised the need for pace in the team and building a sound defensive structure. Two attributes that were solely lacking in Croke Park last year against Down. It's going to take time and we as supporters need to be patient as it will take two to three years for the younger players to fully develop as proper intercounty standard footballers. You cannot build up the strength and conditioning required or gain the necessary experience of playing in high tempo, competitive championship games overnight. I think plenty of lessons have been learned from the Carlow and Offaly games. Still plenty to work on having watched back to Wicklow game but plenty of positives in the performance too. Fermanagh and Carlow was a very competitive affair so I do not expect us to be too far off them in the final group game. A home quarter final would be very welcome and avoiding the likes of Sligo, Kildare and Down at that stage of the competition. If we fail to top the group and we manage to progress to a quarter final then it is one of those three sides away that we would have to play.   

I think this game is possibly more 60/40 in Offaly's favour. They were for a long period of time the better team in the opening round contest and had they been more ruthless in taking their chances we wouldn't have been in a position to mount the fightback that we did. They will bring that hurt into the game and look to rectify things come the final.

The added feel good factor and positivity that the u20s success will bring to the camp and the fact its playing Laois all tip the scales slightly towards Offaly I fear.

No disrespect to previous Joe McDonagh finals and winners but this final is probably the strongest one in terms of the two teams competing in the final yet. Really looking forward to it and the final should bring a big support out from both counties.   

How wrong I was-that Offaly team is more than a few steps ahead of us. The pace and skill of their forward line is a joy to watch. We went man on man and they absolutely blitzed us with every forward getting out ahead of their man and having the accuracy in their shooting. I think their first seven shots all within the first 5/6 minutes sailed straight between the posts. They were determined to set down a marker from the very off while our players seemed like they were trying to warm into the game in the first few minutes. We were never at the pitch of Offaly and the game was already a foregone conclusion after 10 minutes.

At least half a dozen of that team in years to come will form the backbone of an Offaly senior side which I fear will reach a level that Laois may not be able to get to.   

Granted Portlaoise is a football first, hurling second club but with the numbers living in Portlaoise a long term plan at revitalising hurling in the club should yield some quality players. Obviously, it will take a ground up approach but with the population there and with the funding that is available to counties there is no excuse really.

It's a great point you make regarding the townlands in Laois. GAA in urban areas in Laois is really struggling in many of our towns and has been for a long time. Showing some initiative, getting good people involved and putting the work in at underage as Abbleyleix/(Ballyroan) and Portarlington have done shows what is possible. Portarlington is a football town but is now starting to feed players into underage hurling county squads. Not something anyone would have foreseen a few years back.   

What the hell has happened with Westmeath?! They're second from the bottom, right now.

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It's relatively straight forward brother, unlike Offaly, who have a winning mentality that they discovered in the mid eighties, when they picked up all irelands, and continuing through to the naughties, although they inevitably fell away because like ourselves and Westmeath, they are relatively small in terms of population and have both codes competing annually, ourselves and Westmeath are confidence teams, a couple of wins and everything changes almost immediately. When we lost to Carlow in the first league game this year, we could easily have fallen apart, but one win and then going the Dr Cullen and producing a great display totally changed the Laois mindset, then hanging on to the coat tails of Offaly in Portlaoise, keeping the within two scores of us for 55 minutes until Paddy Purcell got the first of two goals, has completely changed the teams mindset, but I personally believe that if Offaly turned us over by a few points then we most definitely be looking at a different Laois team. Westmeath are exactly the same as Laois. They, like ourselves have some wonderful hurlers, but after a poor league campaign and losing to kerry has caused them to fall through the floorboards confidence wise. In live in Nottingham so I can only watch via livestream, but I watched Laois minors lose against Offaly, quite simply because we never believed that we could have beaten them. Offaly didn't win that game, Laois totally threw it away, hitting the post with an open goal at his mercy, poor decision after poor decision in front of goal proved that Laois have an uncanny habit of beating themselves. Finally I truly hope that I am wrong but the u20s will probably be exactly the same, because Offaly know what it takes to get over the line with an inferior team. Laois Will play Offaly in the Joe McDonagh final, forget about Kerry or Down, We beat Kerry by 10 points and they beat Down by a similar margin in the second round. Can we beat Offaly in a final with this current squad ?? Absolutely, but will we, we'll that's where psychology plays a major part. Finally I have a question that I would love an answer, Abbeyleix got to a senior final last year, although they were well beaten, but in the last ten years, they have won minor and u20 championships more than once, please explain why there is only one player in the whole squad ? Let's be brutally honest, if a town is almost perennially winning underage finals then they must have a few good hurlers so what's their problem

The two Byrne's are starting and playing well for Laois U20s and possibly will break into the Laois senior panel/team over the next few years. Shaun Fitzpatrick who was one of the main players on the teams that made successive U20 county finals is concentrating on football and is starting for the county footballers so is not available to the hurlers.

The majority of the senior team that made the county final are still very young and inexperienced. Perhaps one or two more will step up in the coming years to make a Laois panel e.g. Lawson Obulor. I don't think there is anyone in the club that you could argue is being wrongly overlooked by the Laois management. Remember, Abbeyleix were intermediate in Laois two years ago so those players need a couple of more years playing adult hurling to develop.

Of more concern is Portlaoise hurling and can it be revitalised over the next ten years that it's underage sides can be consistently contributing3/ 4/5 players to the county underage teams and in time feed players into the senior set up. On the current u20 panel I think I'm right in saying that Portlaoise only have one player who is the goalkeeper and I cannot think of anyone off the top of my head from Portlaoise on the senior panel this year. If Laois are to progress up the ladder we need a strong representation from the Town. I'm old enough to fondly remember the 80s with the likes of John Taylor, Pat Critchley, Liam Bergin, and Billy and John Bohan playing for Laois. Today's squad with 3/4 more players thrown in from Portlaoise of the ilk of these lads would give anyone in Leinster a game. We won't have a truly strong Laois side until hurling in Portlaoise is properly promoted and developed.   

We have a fine U20 team this year but Offaly look to be a couple of steps ahead of us and have plenty of the U20 team that won Leinster last year available to them. I'd still expect Laois to be competitive tonight-defensively the team have improved considerably on the Kilkenny game when we conceded far too many goal chances. Offaly by 5/6 points but Laois to give them a good challenge. Hopefully I'm wrong with the prediction and the U20s can replicate the performance of the seniors from a few weeks ago. 

Laois did get a huge slice of luck with Fermanagh's best player getting red carded early in the game last year. Had it been 15 on 15 for the entire game I'm not sure we would have won out in the end. Wicklow game is a 50/50 game and Carlow are not at the races this year so we should pick up a victory there.

Losing to Offaly in the manner that we did was a good reality check for the players-after the Leitrim win we definitely had an inflated sense of where we were at. Sligo's dismantling of Leitrim in Connaught really showed how weak Division 4 was this year and how far off the rest the country teams like Laois and other Division 4 counties are. Laois have a big gap to bridge next year if they are compete for promotion from division 3 with the likes of Sligo and Kildare in 2025.

Laois are very capable of making the Tailteann Cup quarter finals. McNulty will have the team well prepared and hopefully we will be competitive against whoever we face. I still don't think we have enough players with real pace which will be a problem later down the tracks if we get to Croke Park and have to face a side like Sligo or Down.   
   

If Laois were to lose to Kerry, Down or Westmeath you could have a scenario that the Joe McDonagh Final places end up being decided by points difference come end of the league part of the competition. Important that Laois put a decent score up on Meath this weekend.   

It's no surprise that Laois' upturn in performance and results has coincided with Mossy Bruce's return to the forum!!!!

Huge game for this group of players. Probably our best panel for many years. Offaly are c**k of the walk at the minute with all these superstars coming. I think our lads will wire into them, they have turned a corner since the league game with Carlow. Lose and we are in trouble, win and we have a real chance of getting to a final and can dream of the glory days of 2019 again. Wouldnt that be fantastic.
We need a big laois crowd on Sunday and the clubs need to drum up a big following. Its the least the players deserve for their efforts.

Well said. The league final performance was one of the best Laois performances in years. Hopefully they can find another gear this weekend and having a good support at the game will surely help.