Leinster U-21 Football Championship 2017

[Don Draper]

Laois can hold their head high after that performance, after all they did come second on the night. Only fault was maybe the manager not bringing on maybe Jimmy Baldwin or Eanna Burke on the square. Also was Buggsy injured or why didnt he tog out?

If you're not first you're last.

[Tintin84]

Who's to blame for this defeat? Or are we gonna complain about missed opportunities and how we left it behind! This has to go down to bad management the line terrible stupid decisions another inexperienced manager giving this job and probably will walk away now, hopefully he does. shocking loss to take.

[TheOppurtunist]

Who's to blame for this defeat? Or are we gonna complain about missed opportunities and how we left it behind! This has to go down to bad management the line terrible stupid decisions another inexperienced manager giving this job and probably will walk away now, hopefully he does. shocking loss to take.

Offaly probably one of the blames for the defeat. Managerial decisions also very poor , manager needs to get in the sea, #Regretamine

[Ballyroan Abbey]

Who's to blame for this defeat? Or are we gonna complain about missed opportunities and how we left it behind! This has to go down to bad management the line terrible stupid decisions another inexperienced manager giving this job and probably will walk away now, hopefully he does. shocking loss to take.
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So it begins

[Don Draper]

Who's to blame for this defeat? Or are we gonna complain about missed opportunities and how we left it behind! This has to go down to bad management the line terrible stupid decisions another inexperienced manager giving this job and probably will walk away now, hopefully he does. shocking loss to take.

Its only an underage game, put away the pitchfork.

[town1980]

another sign of shite management,,im sorry im so dissapointed at the defeat last night,,,to me we should have been beating offaly fekn hell,,putiing buggie up top was criminal im just deflated ,,creedon kavanagh the lot for me have been the worst to date lads im sorry

[Don Draper]

another sign of shite management,,im sorry im so dissapointed at the defeat last night,,,to me we should have been beating offaly fekn hell,,putiing buggie up top was criminal im just deflated ,,creedon kavanagh the lot for me have been the worst to date lads im sorry

One point from play. I'm no fan of Kavanagh, but not even I could beat him with that stick. Your agenda shines through once more.

[The Saint]

That was a sickening abysmal performance. If you leave the management to one side for a minute and actually think back to some of the decisions the players made on the ball....wing back with a free kick in the second half, he turned back to pass it, turned forward, turned back again, then literally shrugged his shoulders and drove the ball out over the far sideline in frustration...brian daly making a great drive along the line under the stand to get to the end line and then try hook a ball over his shoulder from an impossible angle... Sean Moore losing a great ball that was at least 80/20 in his favour and Offaly going up the field from it and killing us with a goal...the pick of the bunch was our free on our 21 under the stand, where was it passed to? It was kicked 80 yards across and backwards to the tunnel corner flag where Cooney in goals had to tear after it to keep it from going out for a 45... It was diabolical stuff. Game should have been wrapped up after 20 mins. Kicked 9 wides after going 1-02 up..even half up them converted would have finished Offaly off. And lads...give up the bullshite with the Beano comparisons....enough said.

[Unlaoised]

That was a sickening abysmal performance. If you leave the management to one side for a minute and actually think back to some of the decisions the players made on the ball....wing back with a free kick in the second half, he turned back to pass it, turned forward, turned back again, then literally shrugged his shoulders and drove the ball out over the far sideline in frustration...brian daly making a great drive along the line under the stand to get to the end line and then try hook a ball over his shoulder from an impossible angle... Sean Moore losing a great ball that was at least 80/20 in his favour and Offaly going up the field from it and killing us with a goal...the pick of the bunch was our free on our 21 under the stand, where was it passed to? It was kicked 80 yards across and backwards to the tunnel corner flag where Cooney in goals had to tear after it to keep it from going out for a 45... It was diabolical stuff. Game should have been wrapped up after 20 mins. Kicked 9 wides after going 1-02 up..even half up them converted would have finished Offaly off. And lads...give up the bullshite with the Beano comparisons....enough said.

while this is a decent Summary your last line doesn't help anyone ...

Laois players were brutal on the night bad decisions on the ball all night certainly cost us..

Moore was a little bit off on the night but he was well marshalled by a very good full back and Laois didn't get on the ball in the half forward line to get him quality balls that he got against Louth.

The wind blowing into the corner was difficult to judge for Laois in the first half as balls that looked to curl over from our players in the first ten minutes seemed to tail off the same side on a few occasions.

Offaly had the same problem late on when they kicked a few wides  on the same side.

It was frustrating to be so dominant and to be only 1-2 up after 18 minutes.

When Offaly burst into life it seemed to knock our lads for six and we just lost all shape and confidence on the ball.Daly seemed to just play his own game and didn't care about passing etc...

Connolly won a few breaks in  midfield(of which we didn't win many)but was then subbed????Why??

O'Reilly has a terrible habbit when we loose the ball in senior and yesterday of just running back towards his own goals not looking at the shape of play or anything I've noticed this about him for a while..He is a great athlete but his game positioning when not playing in the backs needs to be worked on.

Luttrell wasn't 100% fit which didn't help our midfield situation.

All in all a disappointing night.

I won't be slating management or the players as Keyboard warriors do.

They don't go out to loose.

Yes I thought a few or the changes didn't help last night and Shields should have been on earlier but Kavanagh's changes worked against Louth so you take the good with the bad.


P.S When we had it back to point near the end Buggie was fouled before he picked it up off the ground it was a terrible call from the ref Offaly scored a point from a free from this and won the game ...So as bad as we were and as much as we didn't deserve it we were that close to getting a draw.

[Don Draper]

Its grand, if the players learn from it, its grand. A final appearance would have been nice, but a nice stinging defeat can sometimes do wonders at underage. Thats if they use it. Best of luck to Offaly, they enjoyed that one.

[Tintin84]

Well said lot of stupid basic errors, But does that not come down to training are they not told what to do with free kicks ie keep everything quick short free kicks they just lacked leadership terrible performance and hopefully the last that Gary Kavanagh will be involved with, 1 season of management experience and he gets the u21 job pure stupidity, You'd swear he had pull within the county board to get the job!!

[Giovanni]

O'Reilly has a terrible habbit when we loose the ball in senior and yesterday of just running back towards his own goals not looking at the shape of play or anything I've noticed this about him for a while..He is a great athlete but his game positioning when not playing in the backs needs to be worked on.

This is an excellent point. It's not just O'Reilly either. There are very experienced senior players doing the same thing which is the reason, in my opinion, why our defending looks so poor so often. Really good team defending needs more than just everyone running back towards their own goals - defense means that play has to be affected (either by slowing up people in possession, reducing the number of options available to them, making their shooting position more difficult, etc.). It not enough to just move back in the general direction of your own goalpost! This is not the fault of O Reilly - this is about coaching.

[blueandwhite1]

another sign of shite management,,im sorry im so dissapointed at the defeat last night,,,to me we should have been beating offaly fekn hell,,putiing buggie up top was criminal im just deflated ,,creedon kavanagh the lot for me have been the worst to date lads im sorry

One point from play. I'm no fan of Kavanagh, but not even I could beat him with that stick. Your agenda shines through once more.

Management should have told the lads to kick the ball over the bar. Going for wides was a stupid strategy. 

[Don Draper]

another sign of shite management,,im sorry im so dissapointed at the defeat last night,,,to me we should have been beating offaly fekn hell,,putiing buggie up top was criminal im just deflated ,,creedon kavanagh the lot for me have been the worst to date lads im sorry

One point from play. I'm no fan of Kavanagh, but not even I could beat him with that stick. Your agenda shines through once more.

Management should have told the lads to kick the ball over the bar. Going for wides was a stupid strategy. 

Sometimes its the simplest things that'll trip you up. Like not telling a player how to run backwards, or forgetting to tell the players not to react and retaliate.

[town1980]

DON  what planet are you on,,i was there last night and yes it is management,,they are supposed to organise a team ,,the senior set up took the role of u21 management so hey our seniors are doing shite that last night was shite,,creedon in fact was calling alot of shots for this u21 squad,,go do your homerwork there young man,,,i certainly have no agenda but im calling it as i see it and its just my opinion ,,i have seen our seniors with no plan and i seen our u21 side the same way ,,,i agree with tin tin on some points here management is there to coach inspire your lads to victory thats not in laois at the minute,,,