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Terrible performance. Better in second half but it was all over by then. The revolving door of poorer players replacing slightly better players is catching up on us. You'd have to feel for the lads who are there every year and watching as worse players get a place each season. I can't see how that team could avoid relegation. There were at least three starting today who wouldn't get a spot on Division 4 teams

Numbers does not mean strength. There's a lack of quality and we will struggle to stay up.

Could kileen not just sign another few players and stay senior by themselves  , but if they did join with barrow house does that mean the St joes/barrowhouse underage team is finished.I will prob be shot down for saying this but I think there is way too many amalgamations underage instead of clubs making more of an effort to properly coach their young players and bring in proper underage structures .

That's nonsense talk. Numbers are way too low for that to be a runner. Competition from other sports these days is huge as well. Young lads don't want to tog out for teams taking regular beatings, so they go elsewhere. In an ideal world, we would all like to see strong clubs with a good supply of players coming through, but we have to prepare for the reality; not a dream.

I'm hearing that St Josephs members have rejected a proposal to play Senior football with Barrowhouse. They've had a fruitful relationship at underage and Barrowhouse could certainly make a decent contribution in my opinion. An opportunity lost if it's true. Josephs have a nice crop of talent coming through, but they haven't got enough of it. I think that decision will come back to haunt them.

Too many stubborn old men poking their noses in for anything revolutionary to happen in Laois. Football is at its lowest ebb ever in Laois, and fellas are walking around happy out. We are scraping the barrel looking for anyone to come in to the county set up and in all honesty, we're wasting our time. It's going to be a bad year for Laois. Relegation is a certainty and we may or may not beat Wicklow, but it doesn't matter anyway because we'll get trimmed by Dublin and bow out meekly in the qualifiers. League club football is a total disaster and for as long as they want it, Portlaoise will win the Championship. We think we have it all sussed in Laois, but in reality we are rudderless and fading rapidly.

So here's to a happy and successful New Year. Have a good one everybody

A good effort but once again Portlaoise come up short. They have no midfield to speak of and they know it only too well. Scores came easier for Ballyboden who had a platform in midfield while Portlaoise had to build from the back. Rodgers had a shocker and they spent too long trying to bring him in to the game. Bruno had the beating of the full back and should have been isolated on him much more. Portlaoise need to bring in one or two if they want to win a Leinster. What's coming through isn't good enough and they certainly have no midfielders.

It shows how far Portlaoise have slipped in the last couple of years. An ordinary game of football lit up by by Mick Lawlor who had the beating of Delaney and was left alone to do what he wanted. Portlaoise will make a few tweaks and that should be that, but their standards have lowered in line with the rest of the county. The Intermediate game was as bad a game as you are ever likely to see. Best player on show yesterday by a long long way was Darren Strong.

I heard Parkinson say on the radio during the week
that he will never support laois again, because of
Lillis becoming the new manager.
Some history between them.

Never support Laois again? Do we have a choice now? That sort of mentality has us the way we are. I won't play if such and such is manager. I won't play if I'm not picked. I won't play because we play a particular style. Blah blah. The county is bigger than all of these people and in truth, we are short on talent at the moment. We probably have two players capable of playing on any team in Ireland (Kingston and Healy) and a few "nice" players after that. We haven't a pot to piss in either so marquee appointments weren't going to happen. It's an uninspiring appointment (again) but we're fishing in a shallow pond. I don't think we've bottomed out yet, and I don't think any manager in the country could prevent that. We just have to suck it up and get on with it.

In fairness, that's probably no real secret redsetanta. Even on one leg though, Donal Kingston is miles ahead of everyone in the county and that's the problem for teams playing Killeen. It would take at least two to mark him and that frees up a bit of room for the other lads. It was an important win for Killeen and I'm sure their confidence is growing. Portlaoise beat a very ordinary Killeshin team and don't look very convincing. It's a mediocre championship that they could and probably should win, but they are on the decline as a team and don't have much strength in depth. These games are not bringing forth any new players and it worries me greatly to see some of the hammerings being dished out by ordinary teams. A tough job ahead for whoever gets the county job.

Ballylynan/Glenmore were well short, particularly of their best players. In truth though, it wouldn't have mattered. Lads running around the pitch as if they had done it for the first time in their life. Literally thrown together and expected to do something. The two Arles clubs make a minimal contribution to this amalgamation and it just makes you wonder what the future holds

No offence intended. Just calling it how I see it really. None of these emerging teams have anything new or exciting to offer the county. Portlaoise are blending in and hoping to coast to another county title. They might get caught in the long grass adopting such a lazy attitude, and in many ways it might wake them up as a club. Only getting 7 scores against a back line like Killeens is pretty poor stuff. I don't see anyone there even the colour of a county player

Portlaoise's standards are dropping in line with the overall standard, and if that doesn't show up in Laois, it certainly will if they or whoever else represent us in the Leinster Club. Ill discipline is a county wide problem. Fair play to Arles Killeen. You can only beat what's in front of you and they did that Saturday evening. They have a winning and hard working attitude to the game despite being very limited in a number of areas on the field. The presence of The Heath in the other semi shows how far the rest of the teams are plummeting. Laois football is in a bad place

High Fielder: We can blame the county board on alot of things but not because of  no championship in mid July. Any county board across the county cant fix games in July due to the qualifiers. Instead we have league games which by their name are games!! Most clubs don't want championship in July or August as many of their younger players are in America or the older guys with families are on hols. Even if the county board fixed championship for July it still wont stop people going on J1s. In fact I think the structure of the championship is one of the best in the country.

As for the "meaningless league games" its up to the clubs to change this attitude- Maybe a sanction of conceding two games gets you kicked out of championship. Its about time clubs in this county got their house in order. I live outside laois and the clubs around me have the same problem as those in Laois however they seem to just get on with it.

I didn't ask for Championship football in July. I don't know where you plucked that one from. At least one and probably two rounds of the Championship should be played already, perhaps in April or May. It would get lads thinking properly, earlier, about football. I don't know who we think we are that we can swan around until July before putting in a proper effort. The results at county level don't back up the structures as they exist right now, and besides, more than half the clubs in Senior only exist to stay out of Intermediate. A right breeding ground for mediocrity if you ask me, and sure enough, that's what we are; mediocre.

The above said, I like your idea about throwing clubs out of the Championship and/or relegating/regrading them if they don't field teams. The recent situation is pathetic and along with discipline, ranks as two serious areas that need to be addressed. Laois football has turned into a spiteful arena with little or no intervention from referees or the county board. I reiterate what I said in my first post. Some of the stuff that goes on should be under the noses of the Gardaí, yet as far as I know, hasn't even been investigated by the County Board. If our top men have such little respect for football and players in the county, then I'm afraid we are looking down the barrel.

A new coach is way down the list of priorities. We are approaching the month of July and club football is the usual part time pursuit it always is at this time of the year in Laois. Games being conceded all over the place because they are meaningless. If we don't expect teams to play games, and we allow this mentality to prevail, we can hardly complain when our players look flakey under pressure. The senior panel obviously put in the effort, but mentally they are weak, and have been for quite some time. I don't for a minute believe that we don't have the potential to be at least equal with Kildare or Westmeath, but we treat football like a hobby in this county, and we get a kicking most years now because of it. The County Board have lost control. I have seen events in recent months that would warrant serious Garda intervention, but somehow seem allowable on the field of play on Laois. We're getting what we ask for and the pity is that it shows no sign of changing.