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Very lucky to scrape a draw, I think that makes us officially the worse senior football team in Ireland

I'd say we're still better than Waterford but give him a little more time.....

Roughly how much do you think it would cost for a really decent coach for these lads?

€60k-€100k a year

It costs to run a successful intercounty minor hurling team

I asked 2 people in 2 separate counties that would have been involved with teams that played in minor all ireland very recently and that's what they came back with

When those 2 teams were u15 you were looking at costs of €40k-50k that year

This is really good information.

Let's imagine that our county board are only spending half the amount of the top counties. So in order to really compete, we'd need to come up with about EUR 20,000 for our talented u-15s to give them a chance to compete. Wouldn't it be possible to get say 4 businesses in the country to become the sponsors of that particular talented group and follow them up through the ranks? I think people would be interested in getting behind a particular team. I really don't think that would take too much effort. But of course the volunteers would have to be properly respected and supported too. This really should be possible.

If you say that there is a good crop of kids at u15 level this year, I would absolutely believe it.

You'd hope that this fact would increase the level of enthusiasm and the support of the county board and others. If not, then we're really going nowhere at all.

But wouldn't most of these 6-14 people be volunteers at this level? Maybe the County Board could run some courses to build up skills for these volunteers? I'm still not really understanding why we're so far behind or why our volunteers are of lower quality than other counties?

Roughly how much do you think it would cost for a really decent coach for these lads?

Delighted for Carlow. Well deserved on the day.

If population was the key, Meath and Kildare - basically one-code counties - should be permanently Division 1. It doesn't work like that. You need a team to be motivated and well prepared.

Excellent post.

Clare in particular is a dual county that has had limited underage success and yet are able to produce competitive teams in both codes on a consistent basis. Not surprising that they have very good senior managers for both teams.

Yes I don't know anyone involved but it did look a bit of a mess to me. I hate watching good players who are making avoidable mistakes due to a lack of coaching. There are some good hurlers but there seems to be an idea that good players don't need coaching, which is complete nonsense. We've seen the same in football over the years.

Westmeath wanted it more, which is also not good.

The substitutions were just farcical to be honest.

As for the no cash policy, it's just stupid and annoying. I've gone to less than half the games I ordinarily would because of this and I'm sure I'm not alone.

I thought  Portlaoise wasn't big enough for Dublin?

Wonder is game today all ticket? They were taking cash at U20 game in plaois Thursday night.

Gave up trying to buy a ticket on line after multiple attempts and insistence by Ticketmaster to change passwords. Centra or SuperValu would be fine if you could plan your time in advance. Just don't understand why they can't sell tickets at the ground. Anyway, I hope they do well.

It's true for you.

Unlucky not to get promoted out of division 4. 10 points would be enough most years. Beat Sligo by 6, Wexford by 5, Carlow by 6, Waterford by 11 and London by 10 points. All convincing wins. So unlucky not to get at least a draw away in Leitrim. Wicklow deserved their win in Portlaoise.

Season not over. A lot of football still to be played. We have Wexford coming to Portlaoise on Easter Sunday and hopefully a chance to play Dublin in Portlaoise 2 weeks later.

Come May we have the Tailteann cup which should be very interesting with 3 group games followed by knockout stages. Lets get a run in this competition and see where it takes us.

A number of new lads have been introduced this year and they are doing well. We have some excellent forwards as well who would get on to most teams in the country. I'm looking forward to supporting them in the weeks ahead.

Our under 20s are doing well this year so I'm optimistic of them progressing through to senior in the coming years. We are through out of our group with a game to spare having beat Carlow and Longford. We also drew with Cork, drew with Roscommon and only lost to Galway by a point earlier this year. Last year, our under 20s ran Kildare to 2 points and they ended up in the All Ireland final. We contested provincial finals in 2019 and 2020.

Good post.

The players themselves need to take ownership.  If they're as good as you think they are, they should go out and show it. Are they putting their shoulders to the wheel individually? Remember a lot of them have walked away and come back again. That hardly sings dedication. And then you have these lads coming in for a fortnight and walking away. How disruptive is that? A lot of harm done before Billy or any other coach could ever have an influence. As well as everything else, there's a culture and attitude problem in Laois

Can't really argue with this point but a good coach will find ways to improve the buy in and create game plans that actually work (which includes some kind of coherent defensive system). But the players also need to be serious about what they're doing - no doubt about that.

I don't want to dismiss the idea that our structures and player development systems are in chaos. I honestly don't know enough about that and the evidence suggests that something is wrong structurally. But we're not talking about getting on the Kildare team (although I think several of them would). We're talking about doing better than Leitrim and Wicklow. This doesn't require a team of David Cliffords. It just requires good preparation, organisation and motivation. Obviously, as you move higher in the Divisions something more is needed but really in Division 4, it's not.