Leinster Senior Football Championship 2017

[Gmac]

There is no defending that display, one of the worse ever but real Laois supporters take no pleasure in saying that whereas you obviously do. Instead of waiting for Tony to defend it why not tell us what you would do to improve things apart from the soccer solution of sacking the manager.
What alarmed me about it was we looked so unfit and so headless with our deliveries in to the forward line. Kingston has gone back to his old ways of trying to do it all himself. He normally passes to Paul and when he went off he just took pot shots rather than give it to a teammate.
I just hope we don't get Carlow in the qualifiers...

laois have looked unfit compared to their better championship opponents for about 7 years

[The Boy Wonder]

What I don't understand is why Laois conceded midfield without a fight - from early on a short kick out strategy was used. In Brendan Quigley and Kevin Meaney (should have started) we have fielders as good as any on their day. The foundation of our win Vs Longford was Quigley's midfield performance.

[Cruella De Vil]

Very disappointing. As previous poster mentioned they were on a completely different level with power, pace, physicality. They have reason for optimism, they all seem to know their system and are in serious order physically. The full forward, Flynn, gave us enough of it, and he looks flashy, but his conversion rate is that hectic at the moment, and with less ball and hence less chances he might struggle, some pace though.
Our biggest worry is not even for 2017, there's nobody in div 4 is remotely near this level, we should win our fair share in div 4, but it'll be like playing a different sport when you meet a Kildare or Meath , not to mention the dubs.
It may not all be creedons fault, but he is the manager, and ge has now managed to get the sh**e kicked out of us in tullamore, and get relegated out of a poor division 3, even getting beat by the biffos along the way. Some players had really poor effort/showing, I don't see it fair to criticise individuals that give their time freely, but creedons changes/reactions and non-reactions were mind boggling, the donoher sub, defensive set up with the wind, watching Flynn roast his marker with pace for the 70mins.
One last gripe is the short kick outs, we always cough up at least 2 scores with f**ked up versions of these, which is beyond infuriating.

This is probably as low as I can remember (30yrs), to get out of div 4 is where we may start, as beating Longford, London or Wicklow will not have you ready for an outfit like we faced today.

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

What I don't understand is why Laois conceded midfield without a fight - from early on a short kick out strategy was used. In Brendan Quigley and Kevin Meaney (should have started) we have fielders as good as any on their day. The foundation of our win Vs Longford was Quigley's midfield performance.

Moolick was able to spoil Quigley while Feely got the better of him. Long to O'Loughlin worked a couple of times. Begley non existent in the fielding stakes.

[on the hop]

Jesus that was awful, the slide continues and it only confirms that we are division 4 side. i thought if we got an early goal we might give them a rattle. we did and against the wind and it didn't make a difference. kildare just streamrolled us. As mentioned earlier the plan looked on containment in the first half with the sweeper system but kildare put paid to that with the movement of their forwards especially flynn and i think we tried three players at least. we also then have to constantly move players around to fire fight due to the lack of the pace in the team. flynn did a job on both mcmahon and booth and to see him soloing away from o connor and strong was a reflection on the problems we had.

certainly the kickout strategy killed us, we were so slow moving the ball up the field when we went short but with the forwards playing deep there was no release option bar expecting o loughlin to barrell up the middle. kildare had him well schooled and just bottled him up. anything kicked long was goggled up as our middle eight was destroyed and weren't physical enough on the breaking ball. our extra defender also allowed them to double up on donie and he was frustrated figure by the end.  the forward play was awful at times, there a few who have no interest in going for a hard ball though at times some of the foot passing was dismal. he scored our first point from play in the 49 minute which says a lot. you would have to wonder how bad david conway and meaney are in training if they had to wait till the end to get on looking at some of whats on the field. many commented at the game looked at how unfit we were compared to kildare. certainly players like begley and mcmahon who i would rate as always been fit were blowing in the first half. i think with the age profile of the team especially with the senior players no matter who is coaching them will make them any faster.

kildare won't be bad this year. they started without their two first choice corner forwards and had the luxury of not even bringing on paddy brophy. they were very fit and well coached, they will need to score goals but they look to have the pace and size to stay with a lot of the big teams

the result reflects what has been going on in this county. its been some seven days for results. every team is now out of the provincial championships and its the first week in june. as discussed our systems or lack of them are not producing a player capable to playing competitively at the top level.

[the sash]

What really stood out today was the basic skills and fundamentals of the game which we couldn't even master. Kick passing was very poor, you'd give out to a young lad if he persistantly carried the ball into the tackle and lost possesion.  With 15 mins to go we bring on one of our greatest servants when the game was well up when we should be  blooding younger players to give them some sort of championship experience even if it was in those circumstances

[Downtheroad]

Very disappointing. As previous poster mentioned they were on a completely different level with power, pace, physicality. They have reason for optimism, they all seem to know their system and are in serious order physically. The full forward, Flynn, gave us enough of it, and he looks flashy, but his conversion rate is that hectic at the moment, and with less ball and hence less chances he might struggle, some pace though.
Our biggest worry is not even for 2017, there's nobody in div 4 is remotely near this level, we should win our fair share in div 4, but it'll be like playing a different sport when you meet a Kildare or Meath , not to mention the dubs.
It may not all be creedons fault, but he is the manager, and ge has now managed to get the sh**e kicked out of us in tullamore, and get relegated out of a poor division 3, even getting beat by the biffos along the way. Some players had really poor effort/showing, I don't see it fair to criticise individuals that give their time freely, but creedons changes/reactions and non-reactions were mind boggling, the donoher sub, defensive set up with the wind, watching Flynn roast his marker with pace for the 70mins.
One last gripe is the short kick outs, we always cough up at least 2 scores with f**ked up versions of these, which is beyond infuriating.

This is probably as low as I can remember (30yrs), to get out of div 4 is where we may start, as beating Longford, London or Wicklow will not have you ready for an outfit like we faced today.

Very disappointing today. It was much worse than I feared as I thought we might have restricted to 5/6. Never really believed they could win it. But this was a comfortable 14 points win  for Kildare. Everybody associated with Laois football has to take some responsibility here and not  just the management team even though the reality is that we just don't have the raw material to remain competitive at the top end. Even if we had, I'm not sure we would know what to do with it. I feel sorry for the players but we are not good enough. The structures within the county are not a help and before anyone starts bashing the county board, there is no evidence that clubs in the county are interested in progressing matters. When an opportunity came earlier in the year to restructure the senior championship it was shot down by the senior clubs as it is all about status. Laois football is at a crossroads where the choice is keep going with a plethora of poorly run and badly organised clubs or put in a structure where every footballer is looked after in a proper fashion from juvenile up. Otherwise they will be no one going to matches in a few years.The official attendance c7500 says it all as even the Kildare crowd didn't travel in droves.

[Laoiseabu]

Most of our key players are over 30 and are gone on for it at this stage . I don't know who in the name of God is going to replace them cause I can't see a sinner . It's frightening to think how low this could go .

[clonadmad]

Most of our key players are over 30 and are gone on for it at this stage . I don't know who in the name of God is going to replace them cause I can't see a sinner . It's frightening to think how low this could go .

Wick low

[Laoiseabu]

Car low

[Dave like the tv channel]

Bunga low

[Tony]

What went wrong?

Poor strenght, conditioning and fitness for past 3or 4years.
Average team with plenty on the clock, with too many passengers.
Average management who can't work miracles in the space of months even though some people think they should.
Poor standard club scene.
Poor underage structure compared to tier one or two teams.

You have to have strenght and conditioning like Kildare/tipp underage or dublin underage for example have had if you want to compete. Sean moore is a lovely footballer but he's not going to succeed at the top tier because of poor s&c standards in laois underage.

So yeah we can blame management solely or look into all aspects of laois gaa which needs a holistic overhaul if we want to get back to tier one or two in the next ten years.

[High Fielder]

Everything is wrong Tony. It's been well signposted in fairness. The club scene is laughable. Some lads don't want to play. We looked like chaps out there yesterday. I don't think I'll ever forget Ambrose Doran getting mauled the first three times he got the ball. And he is capable of doing damage in any club game in Laois - says it all really. We're a mile off the pace we're not the only ones. Fair play to Kildare; they at least have plans and are buying into it. We have nothing. We are toast. I'm about as sick of the GAA right now as it's possible to be. Quite simply, we are wasting our time, wasting good money and this is the way it's going to be for a long time. I'm not even sure we have bottomed out yet.

[SCFC]

I have been quiet for a reason on this but let's hear Tony defend that shambolic display

Don't ya just love lads who are happy their own county got hammered.

[Laoiseabu]

Does anyone know what sort of fitness training and conditioning Creedon has being doing over the last few months . He claimed in his interview they were training hard but Kildare looked far more conditioned and sharper that's a worry . The least you can do is be fit for the championship at county level . What is it? What's the point in investing money in managerial setups if you can't even get fit which is a basic requirement of even club teams let alone county