Leinster Senior Football Championship 2016

Started by Junior Ex Laoistalk, October 16, 2015, 01:11:36 AM

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Junior Ex Laoistalk

#150
That was a very brave performance by our lads after a nightmare first few minutes and an unfortunate sending off. I thought blocking a players run was a black card.. That's what McCauley did to Jonno but he retaliated and that was where he let himself and the team down. If we had had him on the pitch when we brought it back to six points who knows what would have happened.

Dublin were good but we held a few of their more established stars back a bit, most of their scores came from the free man who they always found to perfection.
Overall I was proud of our lads and they never gave up even though they were fighting a lost cause throughout the game.

Jonno will be a big loss for the first round of the qualifiers but hopefully we will have the rest of the lads on board and who knows, we might get another crack at the Dubs with a full team next time..

Dublin concede two goals but get past Laois comfortably
http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/dublin-concede-two-goals-but-get-past-laois-comfortably-738563.html

No away day Blues as Dublin secure routine win over Laois
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/no-away-day-blues-as-dublin-secure-routine-win-over-laois-34772886.html

Dublin 2-21 Laois 2-10: Champions ease into the summer
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/dublin-2-21-laois-2-10-champions-ease-into-the-summer-1.2673353


Nice little piece about Wolly here...
http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/football/colm-parkinson-i-would-have-fallen-out-at-some-point-or-another-with-nearly-every-manager-403233.html
Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit!

Joeythelips

Could have been worse to be fair, it would have been easy to drop the heads after 10 mins and been beaten by 30 points or so.  If you told me before hand that they would concede 2 goals in first 5 mins and play entire second half with 14 men I would put my mortgage on Dublin beating  the spread of 14 points. At least our lads showed a bit of character to fight. Down a man against the dubs is a nightmare but the score of the game for me was our second goal that came from a great surge out of defence with Meaney hit Brogan a great shoulder. It did look like division 3 v division 1 at times alright, but felt Laois should have pushed up for Cluxtons kick outs like the did under Ó'Flatharta.
All said and done Laois did highlight the weakness in the Dublin team that the big guns will have noticed, the vunerable fullback line. The long ball into kingston was causing problems and the penalty they conceded was also poor defending.

Saint75

Dublin up by 9 after 10mins. They took their foot off the pedal then and the game was never in the balance. We can fool ourselves if we like but Dublin could have beaten us by 30+ if they wanted to.

maccer

We're constantly told Dublin are a professional outfit and the battle for starting places is intense so I don't buy into this taking the foot off the pedal. Gavin won't be happy with their performance. We caused them problems with our 2nd half set-up and you'd wonder why we didn't start that way. Other teams will have noted. Interesting that Cunningham was much more evident on the line after the break. Love to know who called the shots at ht and changed things. Well done to everyone. They showed pride, bravery and plenty of desire after a terrible start. Let's hope it continues and lessons were learnt

Faugheen

Quote from: Saint75 on June 05, 2016, 01:48:58 PM
Dublin up by 9 after 10mins. They took their foot off the pedal then and the game was never in the balance. We can fool ourselves if we like but Dublin could have beaten us by 30+ if they wanted to.

Your glass is half empty  ::) ::)

Joeythelips

Quote from: Saint75 on June 05, 2016, 01:48:58 PM
Dublin up by 9 after 10mins. They took their foot off the pedal then and the game was never in the balance. We can fool ourselves if we like but Dublin could have beaten us by 30+ if they wanted to.

They did a bit, but the competition for places is so intense, they cant afford to go through the motions. Going forward they are at times one of the best gaelic football teams I have ever seen but that full back line is the weak link, when laois counter attacked with pace and hit decent long balls into Kingston, Dublin struggled defensively. We are not fooling ourselves, but was nice to see the Laois players dig deep and show some heart and spirit. Laois were outnumbered for most of the game and a crowd which looked to be 80% Dublin supporters cheering against them, it would have been easy to throw in the towel. As plenty of people have been saying on this forum (particularly Tony), Laois have a decent team and there is potential there. They are certainly better than they showed in the league.

Tony

Yep Joey, we really do have the makings of a good team there, yesterday proved that. We need more belief though and a good set up - Cunningham does seem to be making progress but likely too late for this year.

A good set up would have had us ready to hit the ground running yesterday, not to be warming up for the first 10 minutes of the game, as we were doing, regretably. You do that against Dublin, you're finished. The rest of the game showed that, potentially, we're not too far off the pace.

We need a man who believes in this team and has the necessary brains to follow through so that we can reach our potential as a team. Right now we're just at 45-50% of our potential with this set up, and that's a shame.

But look, extremely proud of the lads and what we did yesterday. With talent and heart like that, a team can go far, and I just think we're not reaching the heights that we can. Hoping Cunningham or similar can take the reigns properly in October or November and can give talent like Begley, Kingston, O Loughlin, Strong, Cahilane, Timmons (lads in their prime) the set up and opportunity they deserve.

BallyroanAbu

#157
Dublin played 50mins of the match at about 70% , that was fairly apparent. Laois spent 40mins basically trying to limit the score.  This was dreadful and I doubt there was one person in Laois who did not see it coming.  I am going to be a fortune teller now and tell you wants going to happen, we will be out of the championship come the end of June.  Mick Lillis will walk and Anthony Cunningham will be the Laois manager. This I think will be a bad decision for Laois Football, what we need a root and branch look at what we are doing and what we can achieve .  I don't know if any of you read Jim McGuinness book but I did think Laois County Board is very like Donegals they are afraid to succeed or try.  As long as this attitude remains then Laois are in trouble.

maccer

I've said it before and I'll repeat it....it all starts with proper juvenile coaching. The county board should be putting a massive effort into up-skilling all juvenile club coaches from 6-12 especially. That's where all the fundamental skills are learnt. Look at Ciaran Kilkenny's ability to kick 40 yards points off left and right feet highlighted on the Sunday Game tonight. That's taught to kids U10 after that it's too late. Clubs should be delivering kids with all the basic skills (left & right) to County Development squads so they can all be brought to a higher level. These squads should not be about teaching skills but how to use them at an elite level. No reason why 50 top class kids can't be produced year on year. It would take time but you have to start

The Boy Wonder

The focus moves to the qualifiers now. Given the low expectations prior to Saturday the manner of our defeat should not cause too much damage to the mindset of the players. I hope that everyone stays on board - a good run in the qualifiers is within their capabilities.

Tony

I'm really proud of the performance. Which other team in the whole country would go a man down in the first half and still put that performance in the 2nd up to the dubs? I'm sick of people saying the dubs took their foot off the pedal. If the dubs had their foot off the pedal in the 2nd half, then WE had it off the pedal in the first. We have the talent to do well, I wish we'd believe that. Let's get behind these lads in the qualifiers, the draw is on tomorrow. If we'd have the belief and awareness to play like we did in the 2nd half for the full 70 - tell me why we can't go far with this bunch of players.

BallyroanAbu

#161
Tony you wear your heart on your sleeve.  But be realistic, we were hammered all year and Saturday was no different.  We are not running down the county, are we not questioning what is wrong rather than blindly following.  We have had 3 years of progressively getting worse I think we should be asking questions at this stage.  We can't go far because we are playing poorly and you are right this bunch of players are better than this.

Tony

So it's Armagh next for Laois in O' Moore Park on the 18th or 19th. Interesting draw and perhaps a good one for us. Why? Because what's the point in playing a Carlow, London or Leitrim. Armagh will be a very big test and we'll have to be up for it to beat them. I think it's a good draw for us in the sense that it's less than two weeks away and will keep the interest in the squad. Armagh are at a similar level to us in my opinion - McGeeney is under pressure there so he will be obsessing about how to beat us. HOPEFULLY we will do a similar level of homework on them. We will miss JOL but Meaney should slot in there.

The draw in full is :

LAOIS vs ARMAGH

CARLOW vs WICKLOW

DERRY vs LOUTH/MEATH

LEITRIM vs WATERFORD

DOWN vs LONGFORD

ANTRIM vs LIMERICK

OFFALY / WESTMEATH vs LONDON

WEXFORD vs FERMAN / DONEGAL.

OTF

Quote from: Tony on June 07, 2016, 08:53:30 AM
So it's Armagh next for Laois in O' Moore Park on the 18th or 19th. Interesting draw and perhaps a good one for us. Why? Because what's the point in playing a Carlow, London or Leitrim. Armagh will be a very big test and we'll have to be up for it to beat them. I think it's a good draw for us in the sense that it's less than two weeks away and will keep the interest in the squad. Armagh are at a similar level to us in my opinion - McGeeney is under pressure there so he will be obsessing about how to beat us. HOPEFULLY we will do a similar level of homework on them. We will miss JOL but Meaney should slot in there.

The draw in full is :

LAOIS vs ARMAGH

CARLOW vs WICKLOW

DERRY vs LOUTH/MEATH

LEITRIM vs WATERFORD

DOWN vs LONGFORD

ANTRIM vs LIMERICK

OFFALY / WESTMEATH vs LONDON

WEXFORD vs FERMAN / DONEGAL.

Agree  a good draw, not an easy one but a win for either team could set up the summer, a defeat would be a disaster.

Giovanni

Just wanted to add my congratulations to the team for giving a decent account of themselves at the weekend. I thought that Attride was superb again along with Timmons. Although I wouldn't be his biggest fan, Meaney was immense when he came on and really added a bit of power and aggression. I thought Meredith was also very good and Cahillane and Kingston (esp. in the second half) did very well against the odds.

Darren Strong's position on the half back line should be questioned a bit now I think. He's a super footballer but I think his lack of defensive skills means he should be a bit higher up the field. It's been mentioned here a few times before and I hadn't really seen it but it came through pretty clearly at the weekend.

On the JOL sending off, I find it very frustrating that the man who "gets his retaliation in first" is at a huge advantage in the game. JOL was being continuously fouled by McAuley and nothing was being done. Then he draws out and McAuley and misses more than half this game and all of the next one. It was obviously a red card offence but it would never have happened if the original fouling had been dealt with properly. Maybe Laois can learn from this - certainly, I would encourage them to take the McAuley approach to slowing down opponents if this is the way that it's dealt with. Or maybe if it was a Laois man that tried that, he would get a black card.............. In any case, it doesn't look much like justice to me.