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I've a hunch we (Laois) might secure our spot later today.

Just by the skin of their teeth!

Going man to man and playing "traditional open football" against the likes of O'Callaghan, Kilkenny & co. will certainly help secure your place in the Tailteann Cup without any great difficultly.

Frustrating draw. Even if we win the remaining two games I wouldn't fancy our chances of getting to the final. I can see Offaly already qualified come the final round of games and throwing out a second string team against Carlow in the last game. They would probably take Carlow over Laois in the final and take great satisfaction from eliminating us. A wasted year. 

I'm not sure why but for some reason I think the Dubs might be in for a fright

Your prediction has rung true. The fright being how truly terrible this Laois team is. I am debating heading home now. Hard to watch another 35 minutes of this.

Colm Parkinson told RTÉ Sport's Eithne O'Brien that, "I think we're a better footballing team.

"Dublin are hyped up by the media. We knew coming up here that if we rattled them, that they'd be over-confident, that we'd be able to get a run on them. That's the way it's going.

"So hopefully in the second-half we'll be able to drive it home, and I can't see us losing from this point, to be honest with you."


Ahhh Wolly at half time in 2003


How right he was

Rem in 2015 I think we were 2 points up at the break I remember been at it and there was nobody from laous there .
Donie Ross Strong and Finn all kicked wonder points into the hill .

Good Laois team on the day Brody made his debut

That Laois team was backboned by a lot of lads who had been part of the successful minor and U21 teams of the 00s. They were all in their late 20s/very early 30s and in their prime as footballers. Played some great football in that first half. It was a warm day and the strenght of the substitutions that Dublin could make meant that we were never going to be able sustain those efforts for full 70 minutes.  I don't think we've had a better championship performance since.

Think that is a very fair assessment High Fielder. Expected it to be a close game but Kildare were a much more physically superior team and they made it count on the day. Once things got away from Laois, players heads dropped and Kildare were able to put up a big score easily. Potential for one or two of those lads to step up to senior panel. With Tailteann Cup chance to be involved with Laois seniors for a couple months at least and perhaps gain some game time. Such an experience will hopefully build up their experience for the future.

With Sligo/New York, Westmeath and Limerick/Clare already guaranteed spots in the All-Ireland series and Cavan holding genuine prospects of making an Ulster final it shows how important it is to finish in the top 3/4 places of division 2 for Leinster teams in that division. With the potential to land on the same side of the draw as Dublin in Leinster, it effectively ends your participation in the All-Ireland series if you have a bottom half finish in the league and draw Dublin prior to the Leinster final.

Kildare and Meath may both end up competing for the Tailteann Cup as opposed to for Sam. What the Tailteann Cup doesn't need are teams playing in and winning this competition who see themselves as "too good" or "above it". Westmeath's genuine delight and celebration in winning the competition added great value to it in it's first year. This is what the Tailteann Cup needs. If we have a couple of years of counties winning the Tailteann Cup who don't really embrace that success then it's going to devalue the competition a little. The Tailteann Cup is to give the Leitrim's, Laois' and Wickow's a genuine shot at an All-Ireland title not the likes of Kildare or Meath an opprtunity to get their hands on a trophy that they may show the proper appreciation for.   

Kildare have improved from their opening day defeat to Westmeath. However, this is not one of the stronger Kildare U20 teams of recent years and Laois will be a match for them. This is very much a 50/50 game. Hopefully the lads can prevail. Football in the county needs some success stories at intercounty level to try restore some interest in Laois football within the county. It was awful to see the stand in Portlaoise so empty last Sunday. Thankfully a few hundred supporters from Wexford travelled or the place would have been like a morgue on the day. 

What I find particularly interesting about the make up of the starting minor team is the return of our traditional powers such as Portlaoise, Joseph's, Graigue and Stradbally back-boning the team. It's good to see as these clubs getting their underage development structures right. On the flip side no players from O'Dempsey's, Portarlington or Ballyroan-Abbey in the starting team or subs. Have the other clubs caught up with them in terms of underage development? or has underage standards slipped in these clubs and too much priority put on successful sides to detriment of those following after?

If you want an example of how we regressed- you could argue that Lillis and Finn at their peak were unable to break into our starting 15 circa 2016/2017. Now we have never been more reliant on them and they both well into their 30s. Timmons who has been a brilliant servant to Laois but now closer to 40 than 30 and there is still no defensive player in the county to equal him. Sean O'Flynn could yet kick on to be our marquee defensive player in the next 12 months but he is yet to truly reach the potential he showed that made him stand out at U20 level a few years back. A huge loss defensively is Attrite who is a genuine intercounty standard player and would strengthen our defense if he was still there. Sugrue, Quirke and Billy all tried but couldn't solve our defensive frailties-reality is that the players at our disposal are division 3 standard max on a good day. That's not a criticism-it's the reality of the situation. 

The 16 team senior championship is a farce but that's an argument for another thread and one that has been repeated several times on this forum-but turkeys will never vote for Christmas and clubs won't vote to reduce our championship in numbers. I still cannot for the life of me understand why clubs won't meander for years simply avoiding relegation than be competitive at intermediate level and target county and potentially Leinster and All-Ireland glory. Look what winning an intermediate title did for Laois Ladies football. Park winning intermediate title last year brought huge joy to the community there. Endless examples.

Laois being opened up defensively is a problem that has been there long before Billy arrived. Even Sugru struggled to keep us defensively sound and only for Graham Brody in a couple of games could have conceded a higher number of goals. In championship games against Meath, Monaghan and Cork we could easily have been taken for a half dozen goals. Things have regressed further since then.

Like it or not, Michael Quirke called it correctly after the championship exist to Westmeath when he said there is simple not enough players of a proper intercounty standard within the county. It doesn't matter what game plan you put in place if you don't have the players to pull it off. Laois are performing to the calibre of players available at the moment. We are not under performing.

Unfortunately, if you are going to make changes at underage level you need plenty of willing people to invest and sacrifice time, energy and expertise. Sadly, we don't have that within the county at present. Therefore, things will not change too much in the immediate, medium or dare I say long term. 

 

The most important foul in Gaelic football is the one where the opposing team is coming out of their defence with the ball, especially after they have executed a turn over, and you commit a foul to break their momentum and to buy your team a couple of seconds to get back in their defensive shape. Kerry probably the best team in the country at executing this foul. As it is usually a simple tug of the jersey or leaving the arm in challenge it will rarely or ever punished with a yellow card. It really does suck the energy out of a game and stops a game building up any real  flow or momentum.   

Another year of Division 4 football to look forward to next year. In the modern game of football you need to be able to bring on 4/5 players from about 20 minutes to go to add legs and impetus to a team. Last year Billy was criticized for not using/trusting his bench more. We ended up losing points in tight games to Limerick and Antrim where we were perhaps slow to make changes. Again, yesterday we saw Laois slow to bring on subs even though conditions weren't great and players were clearly fatigued. It can't be hugely motivating for those on the panel but outside the starting 15 to stay positive and keep giving the required commitment knowing that the management team doesn't have a whole lot of faith in you.

Wicklow backed up their impressive victory over Laois with another good victory yesterday. Two very winnable league games left for them as well. They may rue the two farcical goals they conceded to Carlow yet if they miss out on promotion by a point.

I'm expecting Laois v Leitrim will be a close enough game. From a Laois perspective, you would hope that we have the slightly more dangerous scoring threat that will get us over the line.

Hopefully Murphy's injury won't keep him out too long. He's not had a run of games with Laois due to the recurring nature of his injury. A forward line composing of players of the calibre of O'Carroll, Murphy, Barry, Kingston and Lowry should be be capable of kicking enough scores to challenge any county in the Tailteann Cup. I also think Niall Corbet, if given a run of games, has the potential to claim a starting position. The more natural scoring threats we can put out on the field the better we will be.

I'd also like to see Burke of Crettyard given the opportunity from the start against Waterford. This game provides Laois with an opportunity to make 2/3 changes and give younger players a chance to impress and gain experience. We need to find some solutions to our problems in the middle third of the field.

Luckily Laois are not facing Leitrim this weekend. Playing a poor Waterford team this weekend should give Laois a chance to regroup and hopefully revive their promotion challenge. With Donie Kingston not available, Laois are heavily reliant on Evan O'Carroll and with him being suspended for the Waterford game there was no focal point to our attack.