2018 in review and look forward to 2019

Started by portlaoisekid, December 20, 2018, 01:57:12 PM

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portlaoisekid

Senior football- It was year that exceeded expectation in so many ways,  the biggest win has to be the fact there is positivity around Laois football for the first time in many years. I think Laois GAA supporters are looking forward to 2019 and the panel that the mgt are working with atm bodes well with the best players in the county are all in now. Win div 3 , another Leinster final and super 8s would be a fantastic achievement but not unrealistic.

Senior Hurling - A very disappointing year both at county level. Brennan is in charge and already hitting problems. I really fear for us in 2019.

Underage age in both codes once again disappointing, there are players coming through but we are not within an asses roar of underage success.


Zooming around

The hurling development squads did well enough in their competitions, especially the U15 group. There's plenty of promise there.

Giovanni

Didn't see too much of the underage football but I must say I was impressed with the preparation of the minor hurlers. They were a bit short on quality in a few positions but I do think they were very well prepared and they worked very hard during the games that I saw, which kept them competitive when they really shouldn't have been. With the good young players coming through, and with the same level of preparation and effort, I'd be hoping that we'll be more competitive in the next few years.

merman

Really enjoyed seeing the footballers turn a corner this year. Yes, they should never have dropped to Div4, but they did and rose to the challenge well.
The comeback in Wexford was a great boost and then the win over Westmeath was in some ways the highlight. I know they had a tumultuous year but they had been in a couple of Leinster Finals and once we hit that purple patch before half-time, we never looked back.
Three trips to Croke Park were great; one more this year and I'd say it's a positive year.
Best of luck to all.

On the hurling side, Eamonn Kelly demanded too little of the players and he got it. We're somewhat better than we showed last year but I still don't see us finishing in the Top 2 of the Joe McDonagh Cup. The league has thrown a couple of horrible openers at us and I hope we can find some positivity before facing Carlow and Offaly. Two wins there and I'm ecstatic!
Realistically, I expect us to finish 5th in the league and 3rd in the Championship.

Underage, we need to see our minor hurlers making a bit of a statement. We should be well-equipped to top our 'B' group and then have a right cut off the weakest team from the top group.
We'll have a young enough panel and they may benefit from a softer introduction to this level of championship hurling.
I would expect us to blood 8-12 U16s this year and if they can make a semi-final and be competitive there, we can have real optimism for 2020.

Further down, it'd be nice to see our U14s and U15s competing well at the various blitzes. Panel sizes will be interesting and I hope our best 35 U15s commit with hopefully 40-50 at U14 level, enough to have three teams enter blitzes or play challenge games.
Quality coaches for all those development teams, in both codes, is imperative and that will necessitate paying them proper expenses.
The Centre of Excellence should make a huge difference and will allow underage dual players to continue play both codes at least up to minor. It's crucial that we see a proper S&C programme extended across all our Development Panels.
I hope Colm Begley's departure hasn't left us short in this area.

Mossy Bruce

Quote from: merman on December 20, 2018, 05:39:34 PM
...The league has thrown a couple of horrible openers at us and I hope we can find some positivity before facing Carlow and Offaly...

Yes, for those first two matches I'm thinking (because of the fairly shallow bench we have) that "priority one" should be NO INJURIES.
LAOIS! LAOIS! LAOIS!

Blow-in

#5
Quality coaches??? Getting coaches in general seems to be a huge issue. I spoke to a member of the u15 football management for 2019 and he said the u15 hurlers have no coaches as nobody wants to do it. Up to 10 people have turned it down.  We need people to put there hand up.

Regarding Colm Begley leaving, the S&C programme in place is fantastic and has picked up hugely with players completing over 10 weeks every Tuesday and Thursday. But the problem is not all players have committed especially the better ones.

"...Quality coaches for all those development teams, in both codes, is imperative and that will necessitate paying them proper expenses.
The Centre of Excellence should make a huge difference and will allow underage dual players to continue play both codes at least up to minor. It's crucial that we see a proper S&C programme extended across all our Development Panels.
I hope Colm Begley's departure hasn't left us short in this area..."

GAA-SMART

Quote from: Batman!!! on December 21, 2018, 07:18:17 AM
Quality coaches??? Getting coaches in general seems to be a huge issue. I spoke to a member of the u15 football management for 2019 and he said the u15 hurlers have no coaches as nobody wants to do it. Up to 10 people have turned it down.  We need people to put there hand up.

Regarding Colm Begley leaving, the S&C programme in place is fantastic and has picked up hugely with players completing over 10 weeks every Tuesday and Thursday. But the problem is not all players have committed especially the better ones.



Was also speaking to a parent of one of the guys on the 15 team for next year- they said its going well from what he has seen, Peter Hally has taken control of the S&C programme and has been running 12 weeks and the lads have been tested twice, new manager with a couple of new selectors along with 2 from this years U14s, the kids seem to be enjoying it and had two football internal matches. I did see something about them looking for players to trial who arent on the panel, hopefully a few more can be found from that.

High Fielder

I hope Sugrue can keep improving the mentality and performance of our footballers, and I'd love to see him have more of a say in the U20's. I've seen enough to suggest that he knows what he's doing, and I'd like to see him involved for a long time to come. I think the Senior team is more than capable of winning Division 3, and that should be the main aim. The Leinster Championship is a washout so a couple of good performances in that and the Qualifiers would be nice. If we can get as many of the Portlaoise lads as we can on board, then that will help them individually and their club for next years Leinster.

Hopefully the hurlers can find a bit of unity. Incidents which happened this year have left a bad taste in the mouth, and it is obvious that clubs are becoming too tribal. Healthy rivalry is always welcome, but when it spills over into bitterness and hatred, it can never end well.

Zooming around

Quote from: Batman!!! on December 21, 2018, 07:18:17 AM
Quality coaches??? Getting coaches in general seems to be a huge issue. I spoke to a member of the u15 football management for 2019 and he said the u15 hurlers have no coaches as nobody wants to do it. Up to 10 people have turned it down.  We need people to put there hand up.

Regarding Colm Begley leaving, the S&C programme in place is fantastic and has picked up hugely with players completing over 10 weeks every Tuesday and Thursday. But the problem is not all players have committed especially the better ones.

"...Quality coaches for all those development teams, in both codes, is imperative and that will necessitate paying them proper expenses.
The Centre of Excellence should make a huge difference and will allow underage dual players to continue play both codes at least up to minor. It's crucial that we see a proper S&C programme extended across all our Development Panels.
I hope Colm Begley's departure hasn't left us short in this area..."

The U15 hurlers had at least six people over them last year because they, quite correctly, carried a large panel. Surely all six of those people are not gone, are they?

GAA-SMART