Laois v Down

[Pangurban]

Given the quality of Football in Leinster as opposed to Ulster, and the current form of both these teams, the expectation would be a Down win.

[Down Gael]

I think this will be a pretty tight game. Laois are a decent enough side, with some quality players. If Down can produce another 35 minutes of football like they did last night they will be hard to stop, but I dont think Laois will be anywhere near as bad as Offaly. If Laois arrive at the game to play football, they may have problems, but if it gets niggly and physical they could well beat us. I havent seen Laois since they comfortably beat us in last years national league so I dont know what way they play these days, hopefully The Real Laois Lad can fill us in, but we seem to have improved a lot since then.
I presume this game will be in Portlaoise at 7pm on Saturday?

[Tyrones own]

  That or he's left his laptop sitting on the coffee table logged in to the site for his room mates to abuse.

[western exile]

I was reading in the paper that a 17 year old Minor scored 1-3 for Laois in their defeat of Longfort on Saturday evening.  Sounds like he is star of the future. Is he really that good?

[North Longford]

I was reading in the paper that a 17 year old Minor scored 1-3 for Laois in their defeat of Longfort on Saturday evening.  Sounds like he is star of the future. Is he really that good?

He did well for a minor but wasn't exceptional. He took the goal brilliantly but a couple of the points were where Laois had overlaps as Longford were pressing forward in the last quarter and he was on the end of the moves and kicked the points well. He kicked one free as well.
He was in front of me in the first half and I thought although he won some good ball he never had the beating of the corner back, tried a few times to round him but had to constantly turn back. I'm thinking he's not the paciest in the world but he is a huge lad for 17 (Joe Canningesque in build) so I'd imagine corner forward is not where he would end up in a year or 2.
Certainly a bright start though for a debut although he won a couple of frees in the first half where I thought (biased obviously) that he went down terribly easy especially for his size. One in particular I thought the ref bought hook line and sinker!

[Gaaboardmod3]

stiff breeze, cop yourself on, or sober up.

[amallon]

I'm happy enough with the draw, it could have been much worse.  I had visions of us getting Tyrone again which would have been a bit of a disaster.  I expect it to be a close game, if Laois can get big Clancy back him and Dan will have a great battle in the middle.  If Ambrose's nose is broken as other posters suggested earlier in the thread how would that effect his game?  What was the story with Paul Murphy going off?

Whats the drive time to Portlaoise?  2 and half hours again?

[Lazer]

So its going to be another action packed weekend.
Its 2hrs 15mins from Newry.

I think we should have got an earlier since we had an away match outside Ulster this week too.

The football is taking over my life, but i wouldnt miss a match!

[Mourne Rover]

We are in Spain this weekend, so television coverage has suddenly become a huge issue. TV3 is already committed to the 3pm start, which is Tyrone v Westmeath. The RTE2 listings has qualifier coverage from 4.40pm to 9pm, so they must be doing Donegal V Monaghan at 5pm and either Limerick v Kildare or - hopefully - Laois v Down at 7pm. Can anyone confirm this, or offer any more information /

[Lazer]

Chances are RTE will be showing Limerick v Kildare - they usually pick a match with 2 26 counties teams over a match with a 6 county team in it

[thechampishere]

Not totally sure on this one but I think that it's only a maximum of two games that can be shown live, with TV3 getting first pick and RTE choosing one from the other three games

[Bacon]

RTE are showing Donegal at 5.00pm. That's all.

[Mourne Rover]

Are you sure about that, Bacon ? TV3 obviously has first choice, but the RTE2 listings pretty clearly indicate that two games are due to be covered at Saturday evening.

[stiffler]

Are you sure about that, Bacon ? TV3 obviously has first choice, but the RTE2 listings pretty clearly indicate that two games are due to be covered at Saturday evening.

Just checked the listings on tv there, the saturday game live is on from 4.40 to 7pm, the information says its full coverage of one of the senior football championship qualifiers. Top gears on at 7.

[The Real Laoislad]

I was reading in the paper that a 17 year old Minor scored 1-3 for Laois in their defeat of Longfort on Saturday evening.  Sounds like he is star of the future. Is he really that good?

In a word Yes he is good and will only get better