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Saw the team of the year find it hard to fathom how dowling wasnt on it being honest, was also suprised to see 8 borris lads on it but you couldnt really argue with too many either to be fair, i suppose its a bit like the all stars selections the finalist particularly the winners tend to dominate selections and contributions from players earlier in the championship tend to be forgotten, was a simular stoey with the football team, who do people have as player of the year?

mt team of the year foe what its worth
dereck bale,,strad
frigi muruphy,,,strad
liam knowles,,strad
cahir healy,,portlaoise
jamie farrell,,,blinan
eoin buggie,,strad
p macmahon,,,broan
barney maher,,strad
donie kingston,,arles kileen
greg ramsbotton,,strad
sean o shea ,,,kileen
garry walsh,,blinan
paul cahaline,,portlaoise
bruno mcormack,,portlaoise
jody dillon,,strad, just for the last goal

begley?

Reality is every club cant have the numbers for an underage team, so they go in wifh a neighbouring club, usually smaller clubs, i have noticed that a lot of people are complaining about small clubs and why cant they just join up, well you actually end up losing numbers after a few years be it from lads not able to accept not being on a first team or clashes of personality, etc. Even in my own club while thing have improved in the last few years there are still people who would rather ballyroan were on their own as an intermediate team, than have abbeyleix lads and the abbey on the name

Id still have my concerns about borris in that as well as they played the last day the one thing that they couldnt do and have never been able to do is see out a game, you would always have the feeling that no matter how much of a lead they have rathdowney will still have a chance whereas if rathdowney have a 4/5 point lead going down the strech they can see it out

Heard they are in discussions with two clubs about going to play with them, could end up that half go to each apparently

If it does happen I'm sure it would be determined by players where they go. A choice of Ballinakill, Clonad Ballypickas or Park ratheniska surely.

Fair point, realistically there should be a club for both hurling and football in every parish or between 2 parishes, if timahoe dont put in a team this will mean hurling gone from stradbally parish which would be a shame, although i do understand that the dominant sport in most parishes rules all i have my doubts that there wouldnt be 20 lads between emo, courtwood, killenard, ballybrittis and portarlington interested in playing hurling, likewise theres surely 20 lads intrestex in kicking ball between rathdowney/errill and ballacolla

Heard they are in discussions with two clubs about going to play with them, could end up that half go to each apparently

They can have an inquiry if they want but there is nothing there to prosecute anyone with, i hope its picked up on camera because to suggest it was anything other than accidental is just lies

Is there any talks about gales teams happening next year, considering how successful a year crettyard had with spink you would think a few more clubs would consider it, i know josephs and barrowhouse came close last year but considering that they came close to beating portlaoise this year they might not be interested again, i do think barrowhouse would be an interesting option for clubs on the kildare/carlow border, regarding emo/courtwood now would probably be the best time to join if they ever do it as it would give them a strong chance of winning in there first year which tends to help amalgamations

Shanahoe and Colt have contributed a lot at underage football to Ballyroan over the years, but this is now becoming less and less.  I don't think there are many from Shanhoe or Colt on our U14's downwards .  In saying that I do wish Colt and Shanhoe would allow players to transfer to Ballyroan for football purposes only but they are unwilling to do that.  BallyroanAbbey I doubt ever will become a Gaels team.

Colt and mountrath are joined up as st fintains, i would assume that any shanahoe lads that would want to play with them are welcomed, being honest i think we have a big enough pick with abbeyleix without having to go to raheen to get players, id rather see colt, shanahoe and mountrath have a football team between them and give it a proper go, because i reckon they could challenge for a junior A if they did so, we arent that far removed from castletown/slieve bloom getting to a junior A final, if they did that then the likes of dunphy wouldnt have to go to portlaoise to be given oppurtunities with the big ball

Cant see portlaoise been bet, i dont think stradbally are that good being honest, struggled big time against a limited cretty team in the first half in the semi, stradbally are probably the worst team they have faced so far in the championship, in terms of stradbally beating portlaoise in finals i dont think it counts for much, you have to remember that all bar healy, rodgers and bruno have never lost to stradbally in championship, I cant see portlaoise being complacent either after emo nearly catching them last year

How many titles have they won in the last 20 years? 2, havnt won one since 2000, look at the players they had higgins, tom kelly, steven kelly, colm kelly, noel garvan,  its not even that they were stacked in defense or attack they had marquee players in every line of the pitch, ill concede perhaps that they have done ok overall since they were founded but in these last 20 years they should of done much better.

Id consider them to be the greatest underachievers in laois considering the size of the area and the players they have had

Niall rigney seemed to have a fairly professional set up to be fair

He did, but nothing like the past couple of years.

Maybe not but tactically far superior

Not sure how much of last Sundays display from both teams can be attributed to Cheddar plunkett. The Laois team never played a front foot attacking brand of hurling whatsoever. In fact I recall early this year in February in the first round of the league at HOME in O'Moore Park to KERRY playing sweepers and all sort. Kerry went out and played great front foot attacking hurling and completely out hurled Laois.

There is a Kilkenny man in charge of Rathdowney and a Tipperary man over Borris Kilcotten. Maybe the display last Sunday should be attributed to the players and team managers.

Would have to agree totally with this

Nail on the head!

I think ye are being deliberately selective in what you are reading from the original.
Surely it is fair to say that the structures, physical conditioning programme and exposure to top level preparation and coaching that Laois players have been exposed to in the last few years has improved them. A huge number of players on show last Sunday were part of this.

I am not saying that Cheddar was/is the only man capable of delivering this type of set up, but he was without the question the first man to ever put this in place for Laois.
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Niall rigney seemed to have a fairly professional set up to be fair

When stradbally played portlaoise in the 07 final begley came home from oz and played so the touhy arguement is absolute nonsense