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This can't be coming cheap?

If you look at what has happened in Laois in the last week, it must be pricey enough. Talk over the weekend was that both Cheddar and Mark Rooney saw their tenures come to an end because they were costing too much money, and Laois weren't going to continue to foot the bill. Within days, we appoint a new senior football manager who looks to be bringing three of his own selectors with him. Maybe it's all a coincidence, but it doesn't look good.

Portlaoise really had their homework done on The Heath, and snuffed out their main threats. It was fairly evenly contested for 25 minutes or so, but then Paul Cahillane scored an outrageous goal and Portlaoise never looked back. As PK said, with Healy, Cotter and Tuohy to come back, it's hard to see anyone getting close to them. I think the scare they got against Emo last year has them more wary of the competition in Laois, so they'll be keen to hand out a few hammerings this year. The first of those came on Saturday.

The problem would be, under the current structure of the league, Portlaoise's teams could end up playing each other in the semi-finals, so it's a good point BallyroanAbbey, there would be a case to be made for not promoting them.

I'm sure our county board have considered all of these permutations and are well on top of this matter, just like in 2014 with the senior championship...

Ballylinan were the better team for two thirds of the game and deserved their win but Graiguecullen looked very good when they brought on the subs and played like they had nothing to lose. A draw would probably have been a fair result

I think you're contradicting yourself a bit there Junior 

Parkinson is self-serving.  He will switch his view at will.  He has reinvented himself as a journalist and fair play to him.  But anything to do with Laois Football leave it so, he has a completely biased opinion which only serves him.  That is not to say he has good points but in regards to Laois your never sure where they are coming from.

Nearly every article I've read from him seems to be mostly about himself and his time with Laois, he relates everything back to it. That's going to wear very thin very soon, I hope he branches out a bit because he can be very good.

Today's Indo reporting the players want Sugrue.

I don't think Cunningham wants it, was told over the weekend he's odds on to be the next Limerick hurling manager, so I think we can rule him out, barring Limerick go with someone else and he's back on the market.

Lillis went because the players wanted him gone. Mick had the best of intentions when he took the job, no doubt, and as someone pointed out it was a job he coveted for a long time, but he wasn't remotely prepared for the level of preparation and planning the role requires. It was farcical some of the stories coming out of the camp, and the players weren't going to put up with it for another year. It was the players who demanded the setup change midway through the season, which saw Cunningham come in, so Lillis surely knew his days were numbered from then.

With Cunningham unlikely to take it on, it's hard to see who we could come up with. Joe Higgins and John Sugrue are probably the strongest of the Laois based candidates. I'd be in favour of Pat Ryan being involved in some capacity, if his boxing commitments aren't too prohibitive. After those, you're looking at going outside the county, and the last time our County Board did that we ended up with O'Flatharta, so I'd be nervous for what the future holds!

It is solely down to money. They can keep a closer eye on it when the games are in O'Moore Park, as they have the turnstiles and facilities to monitor the money coming in. They don't have that anywhere else, so they wouldn't make as much money from the games. I'm sure it's packaged as 'we're giving teams the chance to play in our county grounds', but it is a fiscal decision, undoubtedly.

Our Co Board spent much of the year complaining about the loss of business to Portlaoise over the Dublin game being in Nowlan Park. How much of a boost would it be to towns like Portarlington, Stradbally, Mountmellick etc, or even Abbeyleix, Rathdowney, Mountrath in hurling, to get a few championship games? All the games would bring a few hundred people with them that wouldn't normally be in those towns and boost local shops/pubs/chippers etc (which is close to the heart of the Laois CB, as we know), and you might even get a bit of an atmosphere at some of them. Games in OMP are so lifeless. Maybe all grounds listed above are not good enough for SFC/SHC games, but a good few of them are. I won't hold my breath on seeing it happen though.

[Kileshin, Graigue,Josephs/Barrowhouse, Stradbally Parish GLs]

Seems its more then the clubs named who may be in trouble. Some senior clubs dont or cannot enter juvenile teams into competitions. due to lack of players. Both Arles teams are in real trouble with juvenile numbers which could and probably will put a question mark over their future existance. The parish amalgamation in that area is 99% Ballylinan sourced. A few clubs such as Kileshin, Graigue,Josephs/Barrowhouse, Stradbally Parish GLs,Ballyroan are trying their best at coaching youngsters and they still struggle when it comes to senior competitions. Its very noticable the amount of less traditional football areas who are putting in huge effort at underage football and winning results are beginning to feed through in u12/u14 grades

The problems of the clubs listed above is that they are amalgamating at juvenile level and not at adult level. Clubs can't reasonably expect to compete at senior level when they might only have four or five players playing minor every year on an amalgamated team. Stradbally Parish Gaels are a case in point, you have three strong, traditional football clubs all pulling out of one juvenile setup, and it doesn't seem to be doing any of them any good at adult level. Stradbally could have been relegated the last two years, and Timahoe and Annanough are stuck in the intermediate. It's hard to see that improving for any of them in the next few years. Emo and Courtwood, Killeshin and Crettyard and all the other amalgamated sides will eventually have to look at joining up at senior level. What will drive it is the players, as happened in Borris-Kilcotton. If they are successful at juvenile level, they will want that to continue at adult level.

One of the major problems facing us now is money. The setup this year was a joke until Cunningham came on board, but it took the senior players coming forward to voice their concerns over the way things were being run to force a turnaround. The County Board were never going to step in because it wasn't costing them much money, which will have suited just fine. We are currently trying to build a Centre of Excellence, and all available funds will be directed towards that. I would like to see Cunningham given a chance to run a good pre-season and get the lads fit, because he's as good an option as we have. I won't be holding my breath on him being appointed though, because I doubt the funds are there to finance a serious intercounty setup.

It has been mentioned earlier about Laois supporters being above our station a bit in looking for McNulty to go. I disagree with this. McNulty was good for Laois in a lot of ways, and he got us fitter and more organised than we had been for some time. He had taken us as far as he could though, and we were never likely to take another step forward under his stewardship. I was happy to see him go knowing that there was a good, committed panel there that were well trained and physically fit, for a better manager to improve. The problem was we appointed Tomás O Flatharta. I don't see anything wrong in wanting to get better, but I do have a problem with a CB that think Tomás O Flatharta should be let anywhere near an ambitious county. That was what killed us, not the actual desire for change. Our county chairman promised a manager to take us to the next level, which he delivered, the problem was it was the next level down, not up. We have been falling ever since and, bearing in mind our lack of minor or under 21 success in the four to five years previous to this, there isn't much coming through. We are in for a rough few years, because I have zero faith in the CB to turn this around.

On another note, having been to almost all of Laois' games so far this year, I missed the game in Ennis on Sunday due to a family occasion. As a result, I may well have missed Ross Munnelly's last ever game in a Laois jersey. I can't imagine he has another season left in him, and if he does go, he will be a massive loss to the county. He has been a pleasure to watch and a credit to himself and the county over the course of his career. I saw him kick about seven or eight points from play in a club championship match last year and there is no one else in the county who could have done it. He's still a class act, and hopefully we get to see him play on with Kilcruise for another good while, but he has a lot of mileage in his legs for intercounty football. He owes us nothing, he's been one of our best ever forwards IMO. Also, if he does finish with Laois, I hope every effort is made to get him involved at underage level, I think he'd have a lot to offer.

Conway's selection is a bit of a joke. He's an excellent footballer, I'm not doubting that, but starting him can't be going down well in the dressing room, and the relationship between Lillis and the panel has hardly been harmonious this year anyway. He was injured about a month ago, got called into the panel the week before the Dublin game, and now he's starting. He played well against Portlaoise in a league game a few weeks ago, I presume Lillis was at it and called him up based on that.

I don't see how he'd be ready (fitness wise) for intercounty football after the year he's had so far, because he's missed a few of Kilcruise's league games. Maybe the rationale is that he won't mind being taken off at half time?!

Kieran Lillis must be some way off match fitness as well, but our options in defence are limited, and with Cotter not available someone had to step in. I can't see him lasting the 70 minutes though.

Anyone missing from training this week or is everyone on board for the qualifiers?

Evan O'Carroll gone to the States, Evan Costello dropped himself off the panel, Gary Walsh apparently had what could be deemed a 'disagreement' with management over his substitution at half time and has either left of his own accord, or been dropped, depending on who you talk to.

The Urban/Rural ruling was brought in about four or five years ago. There was a committee set up to review the participation levels of children in Portlaoise town in GAA, headed by the Parish Priest (Fr Byrne). Portlaoise had a representative on the committee, along with a number of other reps from clubs and in the area, and possibly a few County Board heads as well. The Urban to Rural/Rural to Urban transfer agreement was drawn up from that. Portlaoise were designated the only 'Urban' club in the county, and all other clubs are deemed 'Rural'. Anyone seeking an Urban to Rural transfer cannot have it refused.

However, anyone looking to transfer into Portlaoise (Rural to Urban) needs to meet one of the two criteria (parentage rule, recently moved into the parish) or they don't qualify. This was put in place to stop Portlaoise's habit of picking up talented juvenile players from surrounding clubs.

Portlaoise have not lost any high profile player on on the back of this ruling, and are unlikely to ever do so. What it does do is offer an avenue for players who are no longer needed or wanted by Portlaoise to continue playing football or hurling with another club, and protect the clubs in the area from poaching.

Having spoken to one of the original committee members before, he told me that the research they carried out showed that about 40% of boys under the age of 16 in Laois lived in Portlaoise town, and were, for the most part, being serviced by one club. I think that's more then enough for them to be working with, without going to the DRA to get one more. Portlaoise signed up to the agreement and gave their backing to it at the time. The problem, as I see it, is that Portlaoise were much more dominant at underage level when they actually signed up to this. Now, with the number of juvenile amalgamations, it is a more level playing field and they appear to be regressing to old habits.

We are hoping and praying that Lillis and Cunningham can come up with a better defensive plan and improve on fitness and on tackling in the next three weeks.

We'll have to get Cunningham back from Spain first, he's away on his holidays. He wasn't even at the game on Saturday.

It's a testament to how much of a farce this season has been that we are left hoping we can completely alter our style of play, and in improve our fitness, in three weeks. We conceded 0-18 against a mid-table Division 4 team. If they'd had a decent free taker, they would have scored over 20. We have a manager who seems to place no merit whatsoever on defending or tackling, because we've consistently made the same mistakes and they haven't been addressed.

Sure enough we scored a good bit ourselves, but we seem to pick the team based on attacking abilities, so we'd want to be running up scores. From the team on Saturday, the 11 players from the half back line forward are all significantly more comfortable attacking than defending. The intention seems to be to leave the full-back line to deal with the defending, while the rest will chip in when they can.

My big fear heading into the Dublin game is that they give us a hammering similar to the one Cork gave our hurlers a few years ago. We're unfit, confidence is low, and we don't seem to have any defensive plan, so we're there for the taking. If we do get beaten by that much, I don't know if there is a footballing equivalent of Cheddar Plunkett out there in the county to come in and lift the whole setup. At least when that happened the hurlers, there had already been an upturn in our juvenile fortunes for a number of years. The same can't be said for the football. Some of the stories you'd hear about the development squads are worrying to say the least.

If memory serves me correct, there was a football review committee appointed in January of last year to do an audit on all aspects of football in the county. Has that ever been completed? Did it even start?

The most disappointing thing about yesterday, for me anyway, was that we seemed to learn absolutely nothing from the league. We didn't improve defensively at all. We can barely tackle and we have no shape to ourselves. Add in our lack of fitness, and God only knows what Dublin will do to us, if they have a mind to be ruthless. It'll be a bloodbath.

Graiguecullen had something up on Twitter the other day about a Barney Hennessy Cup final, with Laois playing Westmeath in a challenge game on the day. I think it was Saturday week, not sure of the time. You'd find it on the Graigue Twitter or Facebook pages I'd say.