Messages

Agree very much about our secondary schools,
It should be a huge focus now with development squads

Sincere best wishes to Darren Gleeson, awful position to be in, hopefully will recover.

New manager being announced tonight I hear.

It's all watered down so much it is hard to figure out alright!!

Competitions at all grades everywhere!

My reading of it is the U14s were competing at the highest level, qualified for the A Forrestal & beat one of the two kilkenny teams and lost out to Wexford in the semi final of the top competition
Great level to be at,

U14 Sonny Walsh got a big beating from Waterford & lost to Dublin by 2,

The 15s were in the Arrabawn Division 4 B Shield, beat Meath & Westmeath easily to win, Westmeath beat Clare's 3rd team

The u16s won the division 3 shield beating Antrim & Meath I think 

Unfortunately for the competition/ underage or fortunately for them,  Portlaoise are like Man City in the transfer market
Emmett Moloney ( Tipp ) Dylan Sheehan (Limerick), John Mark Foley ( Kerry) all serious signings / transfers for a club
All only working in the town and not living in it, doubtful they will be long term commitments to the club

Trevor Moore Borris Kilcotton is Manager, with Seamus Dwyer Ballinakill, Brendan Lowry Camross, Robert Delaney Castletown, Shane Cahill Clonad, David Sheeran Abbeyleix, and Eric Killeen Rathdowney Errill

Good lads, best of luck to them and fair play for taking on the roles

Started with a good and complete trials process way back in October/ November last year

Good Coaching, Good positive & happy environment, well organised set up by all accounts,
Great for Laois teams to be hurling at that level to be making progress

Agreed Ottoman, great to have positivity around the squads to build on going forward again.

I see our U14 hurlers with good results on Saturday, qualifying for the Forrestall tournament in Waterford

Think this is the best place to Post this

Have been thinking about Clare since Sunday

A relatively split Dual County

As of 2023 Census
Laois Population 91,657
Clare Population 127,938, so yes an extra 36k people, not huge on the grand scale

Has the All Ireland wins of 95 and 97, 2013 embedded such a hurling culture to drive underage success /standards, Obviously any Senior Success huge for any County's development but must be driven and organised too.

What structures are in place in relation to Hurling Boards & Competitions,

Club Clare / Laois Gaels Comparisons

Underage Structures , Academies, Competitions

Secondary Schools hurling, again huge culture of it in Clare,

There is nothing near a comparable competitive infrastructure in place or supports to drive hurling here,
Could we try to at least to imitate best practices in relation to all of the above by taking the best ideas, for hurling (& football),

Or without the initial success have we not the interest or enough of people willing to do so,

This is not a post designed to slag off anyone, just genuinely interested in the detail of how its done in Clare and what could we do to better ourselves here

Final Sunday I believe

Camross missing Mossy Keyes, Eoin Gaughan, Mark Dowling
Borris Kilcotton missing Aaron Dunphy Stephen Dunphy, Neil Foyle,
The Harps missing Podge Delaney
Rathdowney Errill missing Roddy & Joe Fitz
Just from match reports seems James Duggan, Pj Scully the main men for the winners , Ciaran Coller, Paddy Purcellfor the losers

Bullshit, imagine being that selfish to throw the toys out of the pram and walk out on your team mates, a lot of them young, with one training session and one match left.
They don't walk away when it was Croke Park waiting.

What does that already do to morale this week for the rest of the team & management trying to pick themselves up,
Some way to finish up,

Best of luck to the rest of the lads tomorrow, another big day out,
Left it behind last week hopefully put up a good showing that the home supporters can get behind

Celtic Challenge operating in Divsion 3 is not the standard where we should be, especially with a number of minor panel members playing Mayo in the final.

U15s hurled two squads against Clare today, won one lost one
U14s beat Antrim & Meath

Why have we no county U19 development hurling team when offaly, dublin, Wexford & kilkenny do ??

Massive problem at club level too, no hurling for a huge amount of players at their own age until maybe October every year,
We need an U19 club competition to bring players through from minor the previous year, especially 'lesser lights' that won't make senior teams straight away.

On the hurling side of the house -

Ross Young GDA/ Brian Ging & Martin O Connell looking after S&C

Hurling & Gym based in Centre of Excellence

U14 Management - Trevor Moore, Seamus Dwyer, Brendan Lowry, Robert Delaney, Shane Cahill, David Sheeran, Eric Killeen

Carrying 50 players, organisation & training is top class, I would say credit to Keegan here his first management team to recruit.
Was present at their presentation to parents, excellent 
Have beaten North Tipp & Westmeath recently


U15 Management - David O Mahoney, Brendan Phelan, Johnny Holland, Cathal Brophy & Aaron Whelan, a little later to get going and fill these roles, carrying approx 36 on panel, have beaten Westmeath & Meath recently

U16 / Celtic Challenge Management - Brian Flanagan, Pat Kirby, Noel Kavanagh, plus one more
With this team since u14, panel smaller at present as 8-10 of the stronger u16 on minor panel & weaker minors back training with this panel.

U17 - Glen McEvoy, Dermot McGill, Ger Cuddy, Mark Dunne,
Training hard, suffered three serious injuries to three main players, despite that some decent results recently, beat a Wexford team last Saturday, playing Kildare in first round on Saturday week the 23rd.

Best of luck to all!

We've sacked both our hurling coaches in the past three weeks, Connolly & Horgan, doesn't reflect  well on the Manager bringing in these coaches.

Need to get it sorted fast, could be hard get a quality coach at this time of year .

Two wins but two underwhelming performances, bigger test Saturday evening.

Dan Kilmartin staying on with Rosenallis

Disharmony in Rathdowney Errill as Martin Power let go now after being reappointed