The future of laois hurling

[burdizzo]

Other team in Ctown parish played with na fianna U20 s i believe.

You talking about Slieve Bloom, I presume. I understood Slieve Bloom had basically no juveniles bar the ones registered w/ Castletown, and that they'd have to transfer out to play with Slieve Bloom. Did SB have players on the Na Fianna team (who can't have been very good, at any rate)?

[John1]

Kelvin Burke, Slieve Bloom  u20 ??  Good skillful hurler from what I have seen & at that Age Group too he would shine no doubt.
Na Fianna mix of Mountmellick Ballyfin & Slieve Bloom I think correct me if I am wrong , but all clubs with no major potential coming through at that particular Age-Group, The 1st and latter especially over the years bar 1 or 2 .  Similar to RPG a mix of 3/4 Clubs & did not make an impact for the depth of clubs involved,  drawing with Castletown seen as great result & then loosing out to Ballinikill / Ballypickas.  Castletown would be stronger than Portlaoise I believe also.
Fear for Slieve Bloom next year they are a club struggling with very little coming through

Predicting The Harps , Castletown , Naas, Bray Emmett's ( with 1/2 possibly been out )

[Galtee1]

Harps & Abbeyleix should be a cracking final. Hard to gauge whether they are actually producing top talent or are the other clubs just considerably poor. Laois minors and u20s haven't exactly pulled up any trees bar an appearance in a Leinster Minor final in 2022.

Any word on new additions to the Laois Senior Panel?

[Sir Alex7]

Hearing tat Lee cleere and mark kavanagh are back involved with laois

[Spiritof1915]

Some win for The Harps this evening in the u20.. serious crop of talented hurlers coming through. Surely next year they will be competing at the business end of the senior championship. 
Hard luck to abbeyleix.  3 tough losses but they too have plenty of top talent to work with.

[Verbal]

I didn't get to the game, but I'm surprised at the margin of victory!

Very important for The Harps to win the Intermediate & get to Premier Intermediate in the short term too.
With their numbers & talent coming through having two teams competing at as high a level as possible will be crucial.
There could be serous fall off otherwise.

Seriously clever management needed too to keep 20 seniors plus the 10/12 second team players who want to hurl Senior interested and feeling valued.

Most crucial of all could be what the guys about to depart senior after long careers do. Many of them owe the club nothing, but could have huge influence on the club over the next few years.
The culture of the 2nd team has a really huge bearing on what happens in a club.

[John1]

The Harps better team by far, would love to see them & Abbeyleix been in the Top4 Teams of Senior for the years to come freshen things up

Any other older players back in than Cleere & Kavanagh involved with the seniors?

[Galtee1]

As a neutral, it wasn't a brilliant game in the u20 the other night as Harps were much the better side and to their credit it was a dominant display. Eoin Murphy centre back was immense for a guy only 17 years of age. Abbeyleix decision at HT to leave him free while 5 points down was crazy while on the other hand, The Harps got their match ups right.

Someone from Harps at the game told me Cody Comerford is called into the senior panel also.

[John1]

Cody Comerford u20 again next year ?
Laois always seemed to have issue between u20 & Senior bringing in too many u21 players too soon. This resulting in a large group taken away from training with their team-mates on the u21 / now u20 Squad & they never made progress at that age-group although this should be deemed a vital age-group.
Players not getting enough game time, missing out with their own pre season games of u20 & setting them back confidence , interest & performance wise , as well as getting used to hurling with their own players

Views on 12 team Senior & Intermediate proposal  ?
Is it basically not although seeded on next years performances going into the 2025 Season, a Senior A/B & Intermediate A/B Competition set-up without stating . Don't get me wrong something has to be done to aid improvement of both the standard of games and the interest of neutrals to go to games, but lets say if a Clubs 2nd Team gets to an Intermediate Semi Final next year they cant gain promotion as their 1st team are already up senior , or will they be allowed as its ( Senior B )  & does a Team that was not good enough to make a semi-final Intermediate gain automatic promotion on this default.  Then the teams that lost all /  majority of their senior b games don't get relegated & allowed stay up otherwise

[SpeculativeEffort]

I cannot understand the clamour for major structural change to hurling championship.

Proposals

2 12's Senior and Intermediate

Positives

+more games (of disputable quality/competitiveness

Negatives
-dilutes the quality of both championships

-gets rid of a championship which takes the fill-up of success and the motivation for success away from more teams. Team 8-12 know they have no chance of winning either championship. Preparation will suffer. Standards will drop.

-Leinster: currently our 9th best is competitive in province but our 13th certainly will not be. 2024 could see BK bounce back with a Leinster Intermediate title. Wouldn't they come to senior in 2025 well prepared?

-teams lower down will suffer as senior teams can hold back players if playing lower seeded teams first.

10 team Proposal
Positives
+more games (of disputable quality)
+safety blanket for lower down senior teams

Negatives
- Bye weeks will leave an unfair advantage to senior clubs who could stack a second team if their seniors have a first round Bye. It distorts the other championships.

- teams 9 and 10 will be out of their depth (eg Ballyfin)

-again it negatively affects our clubs chances in Leinster

-why was their no clamour for change when Abbeyleix, Ballinakill etc were relegated.

Overall to be fair to all clubs the championships should be left at 8 teams.

Abbeyleix showed how going down Intermediate isn't a terminal blow and can be used to gain momentum.

[burdizzo]

Yes, I agree, I think 8 teams is fine - it gives everyone something achievable to aim for.

[Laois Rising]

We have a bloated football championship that doesn't work and now we want to bloat our hurling championship. I would rather a 6 team championship played as a round robin with top team straight to the final and second v third through to a semi-final. Every club is guaranteed five competitive matches and with the progress Abbleyleix, Castletown and The Harps are making we could realistically expect six competitive teams to make up the group. We then would be sending our seventh ranked club into the Leinster intermediate who should be competitive at the standard.

For the development of the game the more championship games the top teams are playing against one another where there is something on the line the better. Ballyfin are the tenth ranked team presently in Laois and they are a long way off the standard required to compete at senior. What is the point of having them play at that level to be comprehensively beaten and weaken the senior and intermediate championship. 

 

[SpeculativeEffort]

We have a bloated football championship that doesn't work and now we want to bloat our hurling championship. I would rather a 6 team championship played as a round robin with top team straight to the final and second v third through to a semi-final. Every club is guaranteed five competitive matches and with the progress Abbleyleix, Castletown and The Harps are making we could realistically expect six competitive teams to make up the group. We then would be sending our seventh ranked club into the Leinster intermediate who should be competitive at the standard.

For the development of the game the more championship games the top teams are playing against one another where there is something on the line the better. Ballyfin are the tenth ranked team presently in Laois and they are a long way off the standard required to compete at senior. What is the point of having them play at that level to be comprehensively beaten and weaken the senior and intermediate championship. 

 

I think the 6 team cship would have merit over last 3 years but I do think with Camross, CB, RE, Abbeyleix strong and Harps
 castletown making progress and a possible return of BK then 8 teams is quite competitive. Its also a good number to allow some variety of structure.

Eg 2 x 4s groups
Open draw with qualifiers as previously
Or
Even 1 group of 8 with top 4 in semis and bottom 4 in relegation.

[Downtheroad]

10 team format will dilute the championship as the pressure will be off the mid division clubs if the likes of Ballyfin are playing senior. There is nothing wrong with the current format apart from clubs fearing relegation which should be a good thing. 

[burdizzo]

10 team format will dilute the championship as the pressure will be off the mid division clubs if the likes of Ballyfin are playing senior. There is nothing wrong with the current format apart from clubs fearing relegation which should be a good thing. 

Thought the 10 team format was explicitly off the table? It's either the status quo, or the twelve?

A 12 team intermediate would be quite a weak championship.