Messages

To be honest I thought the final score flattered us somewhat, we were poxed not to concede a second goal and it looked like Tyrone took their foot off the gas. Having said that they were hanging on for dear life at the end.
Tyrone positioned all their big men around the D and rarely did any of them go forward, in trying to break them down we had to commit a lot of bodied forward,when the inevitable turn over arrived we were unable to cope with the speed of their counterattack. We have the big men to play this game also what we were lacking Sunday was real pace, Farrell and O Carroll were a big loss in that regard.

Lillis in fairness put in  OConnor  and O Reilly to thy and counteract the pace and these changes may have helped wit our comeback.



Now  that we're warming to the idea of Beagle in the fullback line I'd like to see Meredith get a run there , strong and aggressive and he ain't a forward. 

Not sure what happened for that 15 minutes spell after half time but it seem to come from our forwards letting the man out too easy but Tyrone got away with fouling the ball for the goal the man took 11 steps beating two Laois players before soloing it which opened up the whole picture..

Make no mistake they blew us away during that spell, from the 30 minute of the first half until 60 minute went from 1st gear to 4th looked like.
But hey ....they are a top team that's what you'd expect.

Fermanagh are nearer to our level won't have as much pace should be close.

To be honest I thought the final score flattered us somewhat, we were poxed not to concede a second goal and it looked like Tyrone took their foot off the gas. Having said that they were hanging on for dear life at the end.
Tyrone positioned all their big men around the D and rarely did any of them go forward, in trying to break them down we had to commit a lot of bodied forward,when the inevitable turn over arrived we were unable to cope with the speed of their counterattack. We have the big men to play this game also what we were lacking Sunday was real pace, Farrell and O Carroll were a big loss in that regard.

Lillis in fairness put in  OConnor  and O Reilly to thy and counteract the pace and these changes may have helped wit our comeback.

Now  that we're warming to the idea of Beagle in the fullback line I'd like to see Meredith get a run there , strong and aggressive and he ain't a forward. 

Good win 3-15  to 1-14.  was it a bit of a shoot out ?

I have to say our panel looks stronger than it has in a long time. Look to be lacking a couple of backs. If it was only possible to clone Cahir Healy!!!

Meredith  corner back  anyone ??   

I have to say our panel looks stronger than it has in a long time. Look to be lacking a couple of backs. If it was only possible to clone Cahir Healy!!!

Aye...and Zac Tuohy too !
Wouldn't that put the tin hat on it 😃

I wouldn't rule out Cahir toggling out for the footballers later in the year

That thought did strike me ..... work away with the hurlers for now ....give him 15 minuets or so home games for the last few league games .... he's probably be home for the summer ....great.

Football in the midlands is in a very sorry state.

Div2
Laois.

Div3
Offaly, Westmeath, Longford & Kildare.

Div4
Carlow.

Can't remember it this poor before.

About the same as they always were.
Only difference now is Meath are bad Dublin very good.

Simple answer to that is : No. No idea why anyone would take Timmons out of the full back role when he owns it and is doing so well there - a problem area for so many teams. Begley would be a good corner back, though. However I think he's too good on the ball and too influential to stick him in there. Much better on the half back line IMO.

Was thinking Begley could end up corner back, we have plenty of wing backs, no disrespect to Robbie but at some point against the better teams he's going to end up in front of goal  1 for 1 against a 6 foot 4 full forward. I'd hope Seale would be given plenty of time to settle in same for Cotter.

When you consider that 12 of those who took part on Saturday night weren't on the panel last year ( open to correction ) this was a very good performance.
Ok there were plenty of mistakes but every  team made mistakes over the weekend.
It was my first time seeing most of the these  young lads and I have to say I was impressed particularly with their pace and workrate, give these lads plenty of games and it's better they'll be getting. Suddenly staying in the group does not seem as important anymore.

To be fair to Mick Lillis I think he knows exact how he's going to play this,  defend in numbers,break out in numbers at pace with long kick passing thrown in.
If players get tired or don't track their opponents they are off.
It's early days yet and I'm not one to be getting carried away but it looks like the best injection of good young players for about 8 or 9 years.

We expect big performances from Donie and young O Carroll at this point and  as others have already mentioned I to was impressed with Dillon.

It will take till the end of the league  at least before we can make any judgement. He seems to be giving lads going well in training a chance which is fine, ok it didn't work out for those lads on Sunday and starting 4/5 debutants in your first league game of the year  was probably a mistake.
Remember we were brutal last year 1st day out against Westmeath also and the year before against Donegal enough said.

I think Galway had more games played than us and certainly last weeks game against Roscommon would have stood to them.

It was obivious from the start they were sharper.

As I said in the previous post I think the management team got the team wrong and it was a harsh place to learn that with so much at stake in this first league game.

They must take credit for the Changes but most in the Stand called the changes so I'm not quite sure why they didn't start with a team similar to the one that finished.

Maybe the two Farrell's and Murphy were going well in training and to be fair Jamie did show well in the the few O'Byrne cup games but in the backs not the forwards.

We looked very small from the throw in player for player apart from Donie,Timmons and the two midfielders we were down inches all over the pitch.

With the likes of Begley and Quigley not there and then say even the likes of Finn and Boyle not involved it means we are a smaller team this year.


Armagh is a must win game now probably for both sides watching the highlights of their game against Meath last night it was obivious they can be opened up down the middle similar to us in the first half Sunday.

They have decent players  in Forker's,Stefan Cambell is a big man who can cause damage in the half forward line .
McKenna and McParland will trouble any backs in this division.

Hopefully they won't have too many more to call on and they are missing their main man Jamie Clarke.

McGeeney will have their backs as physical as your going to come up against and he knows Laois so he will be targeting players like Kingston and Cahilanne so I hope we have a strong referee.

It will be a tough battle as they play a very deep game like he did with Kildare we will need to kick points from distance I hope Kingston,Meaney and Strong have their shooting boots on!

Lillis  seem to be  surprised by how big Galway were towards our lads, that worries me to be honest... like what did he expect.
Its a while now since the "too small" term has being used in relation to Laois.
Poorly conditioned teams will always look smaller/weaker/slower than their better conditioned opponents.

Within a year or two we should be able to put out a team that contains Kingston x 2, O'Carroll, Eoin Lowry, Sean Moore in the forward line. Surely that bodes well for the future?

Yes that looks good on paper, all we'll need then is 6 defenders.
Seriously what is it with Laois we don't seem to do defending.

Yeah they had 31 there on Saturday night. With U21 it can be all about the day too. A lot of the lads are playing on Sigerson Cup teams as well which is encouraging. They have a decent draw with Louth away first and if they get over that, they have Wicklow/Carlow. I'd give them a chance anyway.

I sincerely hope you're right, God knows we could do with the  boost a good run in this competition would give us.

OTF, team was as follows

Brody, Kehoe, Timmons, Seale, Strong, Cotter, Dillon, O'Loughlin, Meaney, Jamie Farrell, Nigel Murphy, Alan Farrell, Kingston, O'Carroll, Cahillane. Lillis came in for Seale after about 20 minutes. Trevor Collins, Paul Kingston, Danny O'Reilly and Gary Walsh all came in at half time, and Damien O'Connor came in near the end.

Thanks SS

management out of their depth, poor team selection, no discernible set up.....mick and co would have been more suited to a county like Carlow with no expectations.

woolly's tweet about the number of starters linked to the selectors home clubs did hit home today, 4 of them hooked by half time.
take out Kingston and we are a middle table div 3 team, now on a par with offaly.

I cannot start to imagine what Dublin would do to us in the championship judged on that performance today.

Could you post the starting team please.

Quigley got a red card against Antrim in the last game he played or Laois played last year......


Its 100% Sunday 2pm lets hope we can get a few out to support the lads...

Tickets are on sale in downeys and in Mulhalls in Portlaoise and if you buy before Saturday its a fiver less!

O!!  I though red cards applied only to the competition they were received in.