Messages

Best of luck to the lads today. Its a strange one playing a team 1/100, never
thought i would see that. Like a lot of people im not going to kilkenny on a point
of principal. Portlaoise should be buzzing today but o moore park
Lies empty. A real f**k you to all the volunteers in the county. The way the game
has gone at inter county level will reach a head in the not too distant future as
the smaller counties fall furthur and furthur behind.
Its as good as team as we have available. Think keogh and donogher are a loss.
I hope cotter gets on ok. Hope our fitness holds up and they dont run riot in the last
20 minutes.

Best of luck to the hurlers tomorrow. Tough one with a new young team ..

Of course the match should be in O'Moore park. Every Laois and non-Laois person i have spoken to thinks so ..
Its political horseshite .. but it is what it is for this year ..
Supposedly Dublin have had a training session and a trail match down in nowlan park and are about to
go into a 4 day training camps somewhere ..
They aint taking Laois for granted ..
Important Begley can play and timmons and keogh and meredith if they are fit ..

Fair play Tony , you talk a lot of sence.
Lillis heart is in the right place but its too much for him.
At least cunningham has big game experience.
Hopefully he has tactical know how to go along with it.
Our fitness is not what it needs to be nor is our tackling.
Obviously we all want laois to do well but a hiding on what
will be a big razmatazz sky opening match day could set us
back a long way. A scoreline of 6-20 to 0-14 is a possibility.
Roscommon and monaghan show what can be done
It comes back to lack of vision within the county board for me.
Other counties got off their hole and innovated, we stood still
looking at them. Kilkenny will probably be an annihilation..

All is not lost though .. http://www.hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=255812

Great post Tony. Laois Gaa is a mess. The malaise within the county is shocking.
I don't know what the answer is but I'd start with the county board.

As for the dubs our only hope is to put 13 behind the ball ala donegal and counter
Attack at pace. We have the players to play that game. We cant defend so the only option
Is to flood the defence with bodies around the scoring zone.  Get dillon, ocaroll, o loughlin, oconnor
Breaking out at pace and keepin walsh and donie as our outball.
Ross is not fit. Cahillane does not have the pace for ic football..

 Very attack looking team  .. can see wiclkow getting a decent score
Hopefully Lillis will be taking advice from cunningham and putting some
Type of a credible defensive plan in place
We should have too much attacking power for them ..

Best of luck to the lads !!

http://www.the42.ie/anthony-cunningham-galway-laois-2747380-May2016/

Can only be a positive thing but it has to dilute Lillis authority .. Good call by whoever made it to get him involved

Disappointing to see Cotter and P Kingston leave panel.
I thought a few might go after the league ..
Cotter has dropped down the pecking order and was unlikely to see game time i suppose
P Kingston is a surprise, he saw a good bit of action in the league .. would have been pushing for a starting place ..

thanks stephen segal its good to find out whats actually going on rather than rumours that cant be substaniated..

Unlaoised, great post and I love your optimism unlaoised but i dont think its based in realism.
We were a mess on Sunday. The ran through the middle of our defence again and picked us off all day.
We just seemed like a bunch of individuals not a team. the only tactic i could make out
was to hit every ball high to midfield where we were getting destoryed. They mixed their kick outs and won
numerous short ones, ran it up the field, few simple hand passes and kicked over from 35 yards out.
Brody would then launch a kick out to midfield which we seemed to lose nearly every one and so it began again.
People say the game turned on evan getting sent off but i dont think it did. They had our number from the 10th minute on.
Several players looked unfit. maybe that was from chasing shadows but my suspicion is that we're just not at the level of the other teams fitness wise.

I think Lillis has been looking to build up the team gradually for the championship and thought we would survive in division 2.
But that just dosent cut it any more. Division 2 is a serious division with team training from early winter. You'll be found out if your fitness is not up there.
Like steven seagal says if we lose to wicklow or get annihilatedby the dubs chances are a rake of lads will leg it.
2016 looks like a write off. Next year could see several retirements. We saw mcmahon and oleary go at 29 ..
Laois GAA is a bit of a mess. But look at roscommon, monaghan and cavan. If things are done right ..

Great post blue and white.
If we beat meath it will be down to brillant individual displays from JOL, Donie, Evan, Ross.
With our attacking talent there is always a small chance we will beat our equivalents but
we'll have to rack up a huge score to do it ..
Youd be hugely worried about the amount of defections if/when we go down to division 3 next year ..
Lillis interviews are terrible, TOF werent much better .. hard to know what the answer is ..
The rumblings from an early stage were that the setup was a big step back and alas performances are proving this right ..
We could so easily go the way of offaly initially and then end up like Carlow if something credible isnt
done to stop the rot. I live in Dublin so i dont really know whats goes on down in Laois gaa circles other
than what i see in O Moore park .. but what i see makes you depressed about the future ..

We have the worst defensive record in the entire league. That says it all.
Lillis is a good laois gaa man but the landscape has changed.
If your not tactically innovative now your gonna be found out.
We lack defenders but we have no defensive plan.
If Jim mcguinness had this bunch of players we probably be looking at promotion.
Dropping to division 3 can be a slippery slope.
Worrying time for laois football.

I agree Unlaoised, the days of the smaller counties like Laois being able to compete with Dublin the odd time is finished.
To be fair to us, population wise we've always punched above our weight but Dublin are now on a different stratosphere.
They are incredibly organised now where as in the past they were a bit hap hazzard.
They have endless money. Endless different sponsors, one alone giving them a million a year.
Ballyboden St Endas have 22 U12 teams ..
We couldnt even get the money hunger powers that be to give us a home match against them.
I see them winning 8 out of the next 10 all irelands.
Mayo and Donegal are on the wane so it will be up to Tyrone and Kerry to try and stop them.

I agree that McNulty did bring some success early on  but the football we played during his last year was depressing and the supporters turned away in droves. I have to admit I stopped going to some of the matches as there was just no enjoyment watching 14 lads in your own half. There has to be some enjoyment in it.
This is the best bunch of attacking players we've had for a while. Defensively we need a lot of work and the jury is out on whether Lillis has the smarts to develop a proper defensive plan.  If we develop a decent defensive plan we are capable of beating most teams. O Carroll is a revelation and a lot of good u21 coming thru ..
We are a bit green at the moment .. Tyrone would have taken the heads of those Derry lads when it became obvious they were gonna try run thru for goals at every opportunity.

I agree Tony,  Lillis post match interview appear don't inspire confidence
I wasn't there but the Fermanagh defeat was very worrying.
To get annihilated by an average team like Fermanagh isn't good enough.
Then for Lillis to say he was worried when he saw sean  Quigley wasn't playing ..
Wtf does that mean ,  worried that THEIR main man wasn't playing ..
We have forwards who can score .. We need a proper defensive structure
Anyone know if attride is back ? Derry have some good forwards ..
We did get trounced by Cavan last year by 12 points but then went out and bet Roscommon by 7 ..who knows what Sunday will bring ..

That defence wouldnt be able to cope with the tyrone attack Unlaoised

I would defo has kehoe in there. Think it would be too much for Seale at this stage to mark the likes of McCurry.

I think begley will go to left half back and Dillon to half forward.

Our half forward line will surely fall back again as per Armagh.

Leaving Walsh, Calihane and Donie up front ..  We can score, we know that.  Big match for Paul Cahillane up against cynical tyrone corner backs ..

Can we adapt a proper defensive structure against a top team ?  Prevent goals .. thats the big question ..

Rode our look but got over the line.
Armagh are a very average team and it would have been a disaster to lose to them having gone 7 up
Think the win will give the team more needed confidence
Fought and defended well for most of the game and in Kingston and O'Carroll we have 2 leaders that can
get scores when space is tight.
Getting our midfielders back will make a big difference ..
Well capable of staying in the division as long as the same fight is carried into each game
Dillon was very good going forward, Lillis was good, Donogher was good. Donie mixed it but his accurate passing
into Cahillane is a real plus. We should be able to put up a decent score in any game with our attackers ..