The future of laois hurling

[Keyser Söze]

Once again, hats off to the people of Rosenallis.
We could all learn from them.
The clubs surrounding them certainly could.

[blueandwhite1]

Very impressive to see a Laois team win a premium hurling feile title and taking such scalps along the way. Div 2 is a serious level. Well done to Rosenallis.

[clonadmad]

Well done to Rosenallis,a club that does its juvenile business right.

Second year in a row that a Laois team has won div2 .

[blueandwhite1]

Well done to Rosenallis,a club that does its juvenile business right.

Second year in a row that a Laois team has won div2 .

Who won it last year?

[Don Draper]

Well done to Rosenallis,a club that does its juvenile business right.

Second year in a row that a Laois team has won div2 .

Who won it last year?

Abbeyleix

[clonadmad]

http://www.laoistoday.ie/2017/06/19/round-eight-laois-teams-enjoy-glorious-feile-weekend/

[clonadmad]

Tipp getting another 4 GDA's on top of their existing 8

[Tobias]

After dwelling on laois performances since we exited all competitions in 2017 I have come to the following conclusions;
The Senior hurlers...
I think it was a reasonably good year overall. Maintaining division 1B status is crucial, topping the table in the round robin, beating Carlow in the qualifiers are good achievements for this team. Who knows if we hadn't so many injuries how close we would have got to Dublin.
Going forward as has already been said its crucial that Cahir Healy and Matthew Whelan stay on for another couple of years. We really need to strengthen the panel next year to and hopefully the likes of Joe Campion, Colm Stapleton, PJ Scully, Gearoid Burke and Eoin Reilly rejoin the panel. There are other guys like Robbie Phelan, Joe Geaney, Padraig Delaney and Ciaran Comerford  to name a few that should be encouraged to commit to the panel.
I reckon we are the tenth best team in Ireland at the moment, with Offaly in disarray coming11th. Offaly are likely to lose some of their best players over the next year or two as Shane Dooley, Joe Bergin and captain Sean Ryan at the end of their county careers.
The problem for laois is that their is too big a gap between us and the team at number 9 which is probably Dublin. There has been a lot of talk about bridging the gap over the past few years but no action actually doing something about it.

While the are some encouraging signs coming from some underage teams there are not enough encouraging signs. The minors surprised a lot of people this year and really can be proud of their efforts, running Dublin to 3 points was fair going and this is where we need to get to with all our underage teams. We need to be at least competitive and then results will follow here and there. The under 14s have shown promise but against who? Its only in the Tony forrestal competitions that you really see where these lads are at.

So what can be done??
We can and should constantly be begging croke park for support and when they don't give it go to national media to complain about them and show them up, for example, the huge quantities of money being pumped into development in Dublin where financially they are already mega rich is a disgrace. Almost every club in Dublin have full time GDO's and have state of the art facilities. Its obvious that the GAA will do all they can to support Dublin while the weaker counties are struggling to stay a float. We might not have any success in our pleading but its worth fighting for.
Outside croke parks help its up to our Co board to put structures in place that will give us a better chance of success in the future, we will never improve enough to win anything unless a strategic plan is in place and implemented in the best possible way.
What should our Co board do??
1) Hire a full time director of hurling
Who? Cheddar Plunkett - This man has already proved to everybody how good an organizer he is, how intelligent he is and he has shown an incredible passion for the game and above all for his county. Cheddar should be given full support from the county board to carry out his agenda
What should Cheddar do?
- Put a plan together for the future of laois hurling incorporating every aspect of the game in terms of development of players, supporters clubs, fundraising, urban involvement, referees, club development etc
- Put a trusted team (committee) of people in place that he can delegate different jobs to, intelligent passionate laois hurling people like, Pat Critchley, Niall Rigney, Paul Cuddy, John O Sullivan, Enda Lyons, Andy Dunne, Brian Stapleton, Brian Campion, Tommy Fitzgerald etc (There are good people in every club)
Clubs should nominate people they feel would have something to add and those people would be interviewed by Cheddar to assess their suitability, commitment and passion for the job. The difficult part is to get these good people involved as they would be voluntary positions, however with Cheddars persuasive ways and something worthwhile id be confident a good team of men could be assembled for the job.
- Regionalize and expand the setanta and chuchullian programmes, possibly dividing up the county in 4 even zones, supervised buses should be ran to bring players to and from the camps. This would encourage more involvement. Each zone would have a GDO(ideally full time) reporting to Cheddar weekly or bi-weekly. Cheddar would assess each zone on how they are working and how they could be improved, giving assistance to the GDO's as much as possible.
- A Laois hurling school of excellence focused at elite players from the ages of 13 -17 should be formed with individual plans divised for each player to work on their weaknesses, each player should be monitored closely between the ages of 13 - 17. The management teams would be interviewed and hired by cheddar and his committee. All members of management teams should have completed level two coaching course (County level coaching certificate)
- A plan for primary and post primary schools drawn up and implemented, focused on involvement from all primary schools across Laois with weekly coaching sessions from the regional GDO. The GDO's should also be involved in post primary schools hurling and help in preparation of the teams along with the school teachers for their respective competitions.
- Cheddar, his committee and the GDO's should help all clubs across the county to implement their own hurling structures at club level and try to raise the standard to hurling at all levels in the county.

Its time to put pressure on our Co board to do something now before we are so far back that we can never "bridge the gap". It needs to be done and it needs to be done soon!!

These are just some of the ideas that I have, I haven't put that much thought into it so don't jump down my throat!!
I feel my plans are realistic even without financial support from croke park,  Offaly managed to hire a full time director of hurling(who has since resigned). We already have two hurling GDO's but we really need at least two more.
Im sure there are people out there with other good ideas and id be interested to hear them...

[redsetanta]

Good post Tobias.

[Keyser Söze]

Good post Tobias.
First thing IMO would be to get some hurling men into key county board positions. At the moment the Chair, Sec & Treasurer are all from exclusive football clubs.
Hurling clubs need to organise and get good people into key positions.

[Kilkevan]

After dwelling on laois performances since we exited all competitions in 2017 I have come to the following conclusions;
The Senior hurlers...
I think it was a reasonably good year overall. Maintaining division 1B status is crucial, topping the table in the round robin, beating Carlow in the qualifiers are good achievements for this team. Who knows if we hadn't so many injuries how close we would have got to Dublin.
Going forward as has already been said its crucial that Cahir Healy and Matthew Whelan stay on for another couple of years. We really need to strengthen the panel next year to and hopefully the likes of Joe Campion, Colm Stapleton, PJ Scully, Gearoid Burke and Eoin Reilly rejoin the panel. There are other guys like Robbie Phelan, Joe Geaney, Padraig Delaney and Ciaran Comerford  to name a few that should be encouraged to commit to the panel.
I reckon we are the tenth best team in Ireland at the moment, with Offaly in disarray coming11th. Offaly are likely to lose some of their best players over the next year or two as Shane Dooley, Joe Bergin and captain Sean Ryan at the end of their county careers.
The problem for laois is that their is too big a gap between us and the team at number 9 which is probably Dublin. There has been a lot of talk about bridging the gap over the past few years but no action actually doing something about it.

While the are some encouraging signs coming from some underage teams there are not enough encouraging signs. The minors surprised a lot of people this year and really can be proud of their efforts, running Dublin to 3 points was fair going and this is where we need to get to with all our underage teams. We need to be at least competitive and then results will follow here and there. The under 14s have shown promise but against who? Its only in the Tony forrestal competitions that you really see where these lads are at.

So what can be done??
We can and should constantly be begging croke park for support and when they don't give it go to national media to complain about them and show them up, for example, the huge quantities of money being pumped into development in Dublin where financially they are already mega rich is a disgrace. Almost every club in Dublin have full time GDO's and have state of the art facilities. Its obvious that the GAA will do all they can to support Dublin while the weaker counties are struggling to stay a float. We might not have any success in our pleading but its worth fighting for.
Outside croke parks help its up to our Co board to put structures in place that will give us a better chance of success in the future, we will never improve enough to win anything unless a strategic plan is in place and implemented in the best possible way.
What should our Co board do??
1) Hire a full time director of hurling
Who? Cheddar Plunkett - This man has already proved to everybody how good an organizer he is, how intelligent he is and he has shown an incredible passion for the game and above all for his county. Cheddar should be given full support from the county board to carry out his agenda
What should Cheddar do?
- Put a plan together for the future of laois hurling incorporating every aspect of the game in terms of development of players, supporters clubs, fundraising, urban involvement, referees, club development etc
- Put a trusted team (committee) of people in place that he can delegate different jobs to, intelligent passionate laois hurling people like, Pat Critchley, Niall Rigney, Paul Cuddy, John O Sullivan, Enda Lyons, Andy Dunne, Brian Stapleton, Brian Campion, Tommy Fitzgerald etc (There are good people in every club)
Clubs should nominate people they feel would have something to add and those people would be interviewed by Cheddar to assess their suitability, commitment and passion for the job. The difficult part is to get these good people involved as they would be voluntary positions, however with Cheddars persuasive ways and something worthwhile id be confident a good team of men could be assembled for the job.
- Regionalize and expand the setanta and chuchullian programmes, possibly dividing up the county in 4 even zones, supervised buses should be ran to bring players to and from the camps. This would encourage more involvement. Each zone would have a GDO(ideally full time) reporting to Cheddar weekly or bi-weekly. Cheddar would assess each zone on how they are working and how they could be improved, giving assistance to the GDO's as much as possible.
- A Laois hurling school of excellence focused at elite players from the ages of 13 -17 should be formed with individual plans divised for each player to work on their weaknesses, each player should be monitored closely between the ages of 13 - 17. The management teams would be interviewed and hired by cheddar and his committee. All members of management teams should have completed level two coaching course (County level coaching certificate)
- A plan for primary and post primary schools drawn up and implemented, focused on involvement from all primary schools across Laois with weekly coaching sessions from the regional GDO. The GDO's should also be involved in post primary schools hurling and help in preparation of the teams along with the school teachers for their respective competitions.
- Cheddar, his committee and the GDO's should help all clubs across the county to implement their own hurling structures at club level and try to raise the standard to hurling at all levels in the county.

Its time to put pressure on our Co board to do something now before we are so far back that we can never "bridge the gap". It needs to be done and it needs to be done soon!!

These are just some of the ideas that I have, I haven't put that much thought into it so don't jump down my throat!!
I feel my plans are realistic even without financial support from croke park,  Offaly managed to hire a full time director of hurling(who has since resigned). We already have two hurling GDO's but we really need at least two more.
Im sure there are people out there with other good ideas and id be interested to hear them...

I've no expertise on Laois hurling but I found your post excellent. The GAA is really letting hurling down in its mad pursuit of a great Dublin hurling team. I don't agree with, but can understand, the money which is being pumped into Dublin football as, although it has some claim to being a dual county, Dublin really is a football area both in terms of the priorities of most players and also supporters. The Midlands used to have a lot to offer hurling, not just Offaly, but the GAA is in big danger of losing this altogether. I honestly believe more funding has to go into Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Carlow to maximise the development in those counties. Hurling in Carlow for example has come on quite a bit over the years, true also of Westmeath. These counties are also naturally placed in areas where hurling has scope to seriously develop. First of all, they're all reasonably close enough to each other to develop strong and healthy rivalries if they can attain the first step, which would be to be solid 1B teams. The next stage would be to see which can then push on to potentially become 1A teams. If this could be achieved then the opportunity for developing support would be there. Laois borders Tipp and Kilkenny, Offaly Tipp and Galway, Carlow Wexford and Kilkenny. Enjoyment of the game is paramount in creating a solid support base but the second thing is local rivalry and the opportunity to get one over your neighbours. I know that the second stage is probably a minimum of ten to fifteen years away but the first stage is almost there and can be solidified if the GAA treats these counties with respect and backs them properly. Your point about raising the issue of the GAA not backing ye in the paper is a good one. Realistically, as Laois hurling is not big name at the moment, as a county in your own right you're probably going to get the Laois Nationalist to do the most listening to ye. I would wonder whether discussing your problems with Carlow, Westmeath and Offaly, possibly even Antrim might go some way to creating more noise and the kind of interest from national media that ye would need in the long run. What the GAA is doing with Dublin hurling is scandalous, especially when it is to the detriment of counties who have a long established history of the sport.

[Don Draper]

Gutting news that Mark Kavanagh has done the cruciate again.

[Dave like the tv channel]

I honestly believe more funding has to go into Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Carlow to maximise the development in those counties.

Carlow, Westmeath and Offaly, possibly even Antrim

Agreed. The problem is that those five counties have a max offering of about 1,000,000 people. If you take out the protestant element of Antrim, you're probably down to 700,000. Dublin, regardless of other pursuits, has a population of 1.3m or so. That's one hell of a captive audience for one county.

If Laois is successful, then the other 615,000 people in OY, WH, CW & Antrim lose interest. The GAA has spun this out now and won't stop until Dublin win 5/6/7 AI football titles in a row.

Thank God the sanctity of hurling has been preserved from the financial doping that has been going on in favour of our capital.

[blueandwhite1]

Thank God the sanctity of hurling has been preserved from the financial doping that has been going on in favour of our capital.

Unfortunately not. It is just a matter of time. The hurling populations and investment in Dublin is obscene, they just haven't had the rewards yet but it will come in time. At some point they will produce 20 hurlers at the same time that are good enough and it will all happen after that.

The sad thing is that a fraction of the investment in the counties referenced above would create multiple counties that can become competitive. The reality is that the playing populations and investment in these counties is really small compared to the dominant counties. Contrast Tipp, KK, Cork, Waterford, Clare, Limerick, Galway in terms of numbers and money with Laois etc. Offaly to their credit and to a lesser extent Wexford are the only teams ever to break the mold and become genuine contenders, mainly driven by crops of very talented players coming at the same time.

Cheddar recognized that in Laois, we need investment to get way more lads hurling in the county to increase the chances of producing crops of players that can compete at the highest levels. To put it in context, Tipp produce about 2-4 top class new hurlers every year despite their size. In reality, we produce one every 3 or 4 years that would be considered really top class (likes of Cha, Zane, Joe Fitz, Niall Rigney, James Young, John Taylor etc). We have improved to be fair and are probably the best of the Tier 2 counties but still have a massive bridge to gap.

[clonadmad]

http://www.laoistoday.ie/2017/08/17/laois-gaa-appoint-new-games-development-officer/