Leinster U20 Football

[Junior Ex Laoistalk]

Leinster U-20 Football Championship Round 3 in O'Moore Park at 7.30pm

The Laois U-20 footballers are back in action this evening as they take on Meath in Round 3 of the championship.
Sean O'Shea and Tom Byrne's charges are two wins from two so far and already qualified from the group.
Meath are in the same position and whoever wins this game will top Group 1 and progress straight to the semi finals


                                                        Conor Brown (Portlaoise)

      Stephen Lennon (O'Dempsey's), Ben Dempsey (Portlaoise), Sean McGrath (Graiguecullen)

Conor McWey (Ballyroan-Abbey), Simon Fingleton (Park-Ratheniska), Darragh Slevin (Portarlington)

                                       Conor Heffernan (Killeshin), Ben Reddin (Portlaoise)

   Cormac Murphy (St Joseph's), Oisin Hooney (St Joseph's), Shaun Fitzpatrick (Ballyroan-Abbey)

                Davy Costello (Emo), Jack Byrne (Graiguecullen), Colin Dunne (Arles-Killeen)

SUBS:
Oisin Ramsbottom (Timahoe), Jake Darcy (Annanough), Colin McEvoy (Portlaoise), Davin McEvoy (Ballyroan-Abbey), Tom Fennelly (Emo), Jonah Kelly (Crettyard), Conor Kelly (Graiguecullen), Cathal Lee (Clonaslee-St Manman's), John Brennan (Crettyard)

Extended Panel:
Adam O'Halloran (Courtwood), Cian Conroy (Clonaslee-St Manman's), Dara Kelly (Crettyard), Darragh Scully (Clonaslee-St Manman's), Finn Culleton (Mountmellick), Josh Hogan (Portlaoise), Killian Byrne (Ballyroan-Abbey), Liam Kehoe (Spink), Noah Fingleton (Park-Ratheniska), Padraig Rafter (Rathdowney), Sam Quinn (Ballyroan-Abbey)

[Spiritof86]

Fantastic win tonight. Delighted leaving that tonight . Great spirit and skill in that team . That's a hugely thought of Meath team by all accounts. Don't want to name names but there's a couple of excellent ballers in the Laois team . Meath led for the first half with a fortuitous goal but similar  to Longford match Laois rattled off point after point and then Costello's goal sealed it .
Beating Meath any day at any level is a good Day .
This bunch of lads needs proper guidance now as there is a lot of  potential evident .

[High Fielder]

Agree with that. Controlled, mature performance with signs of potential to come. A nice bunch and I hope we look after them

[SCFC]

Nice team. Some fine prospects there.
From 2019 and 2020 Leinster finalists, we got 5 good senior players - Barry, O'Flynn, Mohan, Lacey and Larkin. Would be great to get 3/4 off this bunch. I really like Colin Dunne, Fitzpatrick and Fingleton.

[Junior Ex Laoistalk]

The Laois U-20 footballers will take on Kildare in the Leinster U-20 championship semi finals next Tuesday.
Tom Byrne and Sean O'Shea's charges will face Kildare and the game is set to take place Portlaoise (although that has to be confirmed) with the other semi final seeing Dublin clash with Meath.
Tonight's action saw the quarter finals take place as Westmeath took on Meath and Louth hosted Kildare.
In dreadful conditions, Meath defeated Westmeath by 0-8 to 1-3 while Kildare had three points to spare over Louth – 0-12 to 1-6.

[Laois Rising]

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. 

[Spiritof86]

Big game tonight . Will tell a lot about this current u20 panel . I would be optimistic about tonight . Kildare dug out a win against Louth last day out . Some of there big players haven't been performing but that can change obviously .Kildare have been in 6 of the last 15 finals at this grade winning 4 so they have been knocking at the door on a regular basis .
This Laois team seem to have a bit about them and it would be badly needed boost to football in the county to make a Leinster final .
Laois by 2

[redsetanta]

Best of luck to our U20's this evening. Nice one for it.

A Leinster final would be a great boost for all involved.

Is there any radio commentary for the game?

[Spiritof86]

Best of luck to our U20's this evening. Nice one for it.

A Leinster final would be a great boost for all involved.

Is there any radio commentary for the game?

It's live on TG4 YouTube channel .

[Blow-in]

Outclassed in all aspects

[georgedoylesrightleg]

feel for them lads tonight, poorest performance of year. awful week for the swuad and can't imagine what they gone through. go easy on them.

[redsetanta]

Kildare putting uppety Laois back in their box!

Very disappointing. Kildare always on top. Tough place to be for our lads when that's unfolding in front of you.

[High Fielder]

Decent bunch of lads. Had plenty to contend with leading up to the match. Once again our physical and tactical deficiencies exposed

[Laois Rising]

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.