2018 O'Byrne Cup

Started by Junior Ex Laoistalk, November 16, 2017, 01:29:21 AM

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Don Draper


ILikeStrawberryJam

Would be nice to get a genuine update from people at the game rather than pointless glib comments

BallyroanAbu

It was not great, a lot of new players been thrown in at once.  I would hold fire on any judgement, both the players and management team are very inexperienced and I think should improve a lot over the year.  It's the O Byrne Cup a nothing of value tournament at the start of the season, but we will be looking for improvement in the league.  Westmeath looked along way down the road in terms of conditioning in comparison to  Laois, probably due to the fact we had so many first year county men involved at the moment but a sad indictment of what's gone on in that sphere at under age level.

Butch Cassidy

Laois looked so slight in comparison to Westmeath today. We should employ someone full time to oversee S&C from u17s up to senior in both hurling and football. I hope it's one of the recommendations from the review we'll see tomorrow night!!


Helix

#34
A disappointing result but good to see different team trialled and see who's up to the mark and who isn't. Could have been a lot better and also a lot worse. A lot of turnovers both forced and unforced killed us over 70 minutes. We looked like a team who hasn't played together. Westmeath that bit more organised and more clinical up front. They took their chances when they got them. Their 2 goals in quick succession in the 2nd half ended it as a contest when we started to get a foothold on the game.

I thought Forbes from Graig thought done ok at times unlucky with goal chances but decent in the air as he is with his club. Hopefully he gets a good chance in the league. More direct ball to him and he'll get scores or win frees.  Eoin Lowry and Shane Nerney have good potential. A big killer was lack of movement on the kick outs we seemed to lose a lot of breaking balls and hence they going up the field and getting scores. We seemed to carry the ball into tackles a bit much and get turned over. 2 goal chances for us in first half were almost walked into the net, one a solo too much from Lowry and an excellent turnover on Forbes by Westmeath defender.  Hopefully good work will get done over next 3 weeks till first round of league.

As said above the size difference was quite evident and hopefully with Sugrues  experience with Justin McNulty something can be done to sort out the size difference. And at underage level also. We seem to be lighter at  underage and hopefully this is dealt with as we're constantly being bullied by teams; at both codes and at every age level. Can't remember last time we physically outplayed any team bar McNulty era.

It was great to see Ross playing for another year. A real leader and hopefully gives plenty of advice to younger lads coming through. Hopefully he'll get another day out in Croke Park and a chance for some silverware, even if is Division 4. A great servant to Laois over the years.
It's hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail

on the hop

after looking at the two games nothing new really has been found. bar as mentioned Nerney and Lowry there doesn't appear to be anyone else going to make the team or freshen it up. Westmeath have obviously targeted the o byrne cup as a base for their year as they have been well ahead of us in fitness and conditioning. the big thing though, was the complete lack of shape or game plan over the two games, we are playing off the cuff and very open and this half the reason we conceded such a big score, I thought management would be showing some sort structure at this stage. three weeks to the game with Limerick and a lot of work to be done on fitness. have to start well to have some base in Division 4. big worries is the lack of speed in defence especially at centre back, both glynn and lillis badly exposed for pace. lillis actually ended up corner back today which was worse/ its looking like

brody, nerney, Timmons, possibly lillis looking at today, strong, attride, Begley, jol, glynn, o carroll, kingston, farrell, ross, gary Walsh, lowry

Butch Cassidy


Giovanni

While he made a few handling and other errors today, I think Ciaran McEvoy has the makings of an inter-county footballer. He makes intelligent runs and picks up a lot of ball. He's also physically able to look after himself. A few bad-looking mistakes took the shine off what I thought was a decent enough first run out.

Don Draper

Quote from: Giovanni on January 07, 2018, 08:54:00 PM
While he made a few handling and other errors today, I think Ciaran McEvoy has the makings of an inter-county footballer. He makes intelligent runs and picks up a lot of ball. He's also physically able to look after himself. A few bad-looking mistakes took the shine off what I thought was a decent enough first run out.
Agreed. For me it was Nerney, McEvoy, Lowry and Forbes. Keogh is a solid back up to Brody, and everyone else still a lot to prove. Harsh to say based on one outing, but Sugrue will judge on training and that game, and keep what he can, and hopefully inform those being let go what they can work on and monitor them from afar. My concern would be with the established players, they need to be ready for battle in the league in a few weeks. If they are, and we add the above 4 to what we have, it'll be a decent start.

Agree also on the special mention for Ross, f**king unreal to watch him out there tracking runners into the 70th minute. Must be some boost to the younger lads to see how he conducts himself. Long may he race.

town1980

Good to see no knockers on what reads a bad display,,,give John time let him try develop his panel/ team

Junior Ex Laoistalk

Quote from: town1980 on January 07, 2018, 10:19:07 PM
Good to see no knockers on what reads a bad display,,,give John time let him try develop his panel/ team
Agree, knocking people who are trying to get Laois football back to some sort of respectability does no-one any good. John Sugrue did what he had to do in this competition, put out two totally different teams, give everyone a run and see in the heat of battle just what you have at your disposal. I went to both games and to be honest I was disappointed at our general play and the lack of leadership from our established players on the field. Apart from J'O'L last week and Ross today our main men did very little to help the new lads settle in and there is a hell of a lot of work to be done still.

That's acceptable at this stage of team building and the first few weeks of the league should see a lot of improvement as things settle down and guys get used to whatever system John decides to play. I think the O'Byrne cup was used simply to see lads in action as there seemed to be very little structure to the play in either game. He now has three weeks to come up with a game plan to suit the type of player he decides to keep on the squad and build from there. It wouldn't surprise me to see us loose a few games that we traditionally would have expected to win early on in this league but if we could reach a league final it would be progress in my opinion.

I hope Cahillane is still involved as he's the type of player that would really make a difference at this level of football but if anyone thinks that we are going to walk through this division they will be sorely disappointed I'm afraid..
Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit!

Don Draper

Cahillane was in Amsterdam for the weekend, so I doubt he's in there on that basis.

Laois Today had a good piece with Sugrue here

https://www.laoistoday.ie/2018/01/08/laois-manager-sugrue-confirms-will-cut-panel-league-begins/

This piece stands out for me

He said: "We've seen 37 or 38 players over the last two games so we will just have to start making our decisions now on who will make the National League team.

"Unfortunately we are going to have cut a few fellas from the panel. If they've got competitive action and they are not matching up to what we have, they are probably not fit to be on the panel.

"A lot of the most positive fellas so far are the newcomers as far as I'm concerned. They've shown a real freshness and a real appetite for this thing and they really want to play for Laois.

"So a lot of the newcomers are looking good at the moment for us."


Sounds like he's given some deadwood on the panel a chance to prove themselves. I imagine many didn't from the sounds of things.

Laoisguy

Very interesting to hear Sugrue on SoundCloud same as the report above

Really seems like he's going to scratch some of the so-called more established guys up to now
And I'm thrilled

Lads I was happy with yesterday Nerney Attride Piggott McEvoy Lowry forbes also Dowling and Murray kept ball alive well with some impact

Content so far actually

Junior Ex Laoistalk

Quote from: Laoisguy on January 08, 2018, 10:53:49 AM
Very interesting to hear Sugrue on SoundCloud same as the report above

Really seems like he's going to scratch some of the so-called more established guys up to now
And I'm thrilled

Lads I was happy with yesterday Nerney Attride Piggott McEvoy Lowry forbes also Dowling and Murray kept ball alive well with some impact

Content so far actually

This is the report on Soundcloud you are talking about, thanks for that.
https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport/john-sugrue-post-westmeath
Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit!

blueandwhite1

I will say one other positive thing - it took balls to put out two completely different inexperienced teams in the O'Byrne cup. We were unlikely to win either game and it immediately puts pressure on the manager. A manager with no vision or less self belief would have tried to get a home win yesterday to keep people off his back.

Personally, given a choice between putting out last years team and getting promoted to Div 3. or a new team that shows potential for the future and competes well enough in Div. 4 without promotion, I would choose the latter.