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Does anyone know the provisional 2024 NFL division 4 fixtures for Laois?

Provisional fixtures for all counties were released back in October. Some counties fixtures can be found through Google but granted those teams are operating in the top 2 divisions.

Cheers

Great news for Laois football.

Justin McNulty is a massive appointment and I believe a 3 year term has been given.

With his leadership, we can get out of the doldrums. A return to division 2, a Tailteann cup title, a return to Sam Maguire football and a big scalp or two are achieveable goals during this 3 year term.

Watch this space. Best of luck to all involved.

Laois Abu.

Best of luck to all the team and management on Sunday. Hopefully a decent support will be present to cheer on the lads. No doubt, many will tune in on TV so hopefully we can put in a good solid performance. We are definitely in bonus territory so see what comes of it.

In these last 2 seasons under Billy Sheehan, we have been capable of pulling off really good results at times by turning over Louth last year, beating Sligo away this year in the league along with our recent wins against Fermanagh and Limerick. Last year, we were defeated by both Fermanagh and Limerick in division 3 so real progress has been made.

Down themselves are moving well and are deservingly favourites having seen off Donegal in the Ulster championship and of course the big win against Cavan last weekend and a good Cavan team at that. They are capable of putting up a big score so obviously we need to be so organised on Sunday in defense.

Against Meath in Parnell Park, Down had an off day shooting many wides so we will hope for similiar on Sunday. Both Sean Boylan and Pete McGrath were there that day and chances are that we will end up with a repeat of the 1991 All Ireland final with Down and Meath prevailing to go on and contest the Tailteann cup final. But maybe we can have a repeat of the Leinster final of '91 against Meath if we pull off another shock! That would be some story and some season.

Look at the progress Westmeath have had this year after winning the Tailteann cup and we ran them mighty close there last year. Pride has been restored in the jersey and all that can be asked is that the players leave it all on the pitch on Sunday.

Laois Abu!!

Full credit to both players and management for a hard fought win against Limerick. The scenes at full time were a sight to behold. Great to have a decent Laois support there as well.

In the period between the 5th and 12th minute, we kicked 5 wonderful points after going 3-0 down. The interplay was tremendous in this period with a real confidence in the side and good teamwork. I don't remember seeing something like that in a Laois team for 10 years.

The Tailteann cup has been terrific for us. Very few would have seen us beat both Fermanagh and Limerick away. Limerick ran Cork very close in last years qualifier for a place in the All Ireland quarter finals.

It was admirable that we stuck to the task, chipped away and got over the line with Colm Murphy's late goal.

Draw this morning for the semi finals. My hunch is Meath v Laois and Down v Antrim.

Fantastic result in Brewster Park yesterday evening. In what was a tense and cagey affair, our lads deserve tremendous credit for delivering a full performace for the 70/75 minutes to record a deserved victory against hot favourites Fermanagh.

We were well organised early doors and had a structured plan that kept things tight. We grew into the game and found ourselves 0-5 to 0-2 up due to fine scores finished by the man in the best position to score. The pick of the bunch was Mark Timmon's point, just quick thinking to chip the breaking ball over off the ground from about 25 yards out. Evan O'Carroll who was tightly marked all game got a fantastic score then just before half time. I didn't spot the incident that led to the Fermanagh sending off but the referee had no hesitation in issuing a red card.

Fermanagh had a purple patch early in the second halfp to go 8-6 up and you just felt that Laois needed to get the next score to break that momentum. Our goal was a brilliantly worked team goal finished sublimely by Timmo and then a sweet point from O'Carroll. The chips were down when Fermanagh goaled a minute later to go 1-8 to 1-7 up but great character was shown from there. I felt that our midfielders (Kieran Lillis and Damon Larkin) were excellent all game.

Edge of the seat stuff then but Mark Barry took the last score wonderfully in injury time to put us 1-11 to 1-9 up so they needed a goal. Heart in mouth stuff right at the end with that goalmouth scramble! Thankfully we survived!

Very encouraging result and joyous scenes at the end. Fermanagh will play division 2 football next year. Great win for us against the odds.

Quater final draw tomorrow morning around 830 and it will be an away game against either Limerick, Antrim or Meath.

Laois Abu

Don't want to delve much into Laois football structures here except to say that the full system needs to be looked at openly, honestly and urgently if we're to try to steer the ship in the right direction again and become properly competitive again like we have traditionally been overall down through the years. A full long term plan needs to be drawn up obviously with a particular focus on developing underage talent. I get that we will never be world beaters but we as a county can certainly do better.

We only have to look at our neighbours Offaly who are very much back on the right track with the under 20 football All Ireland in 2021 and today competing in the under 20 hurling final. A dual county like ourselves with a small population. What a talent Adam Screeney is! We could do with a boy wonder ourselves like we have had in the past with the likes of Michael Lawlor, Beano McDonald, Tom Kelly and Donie Kingston.

On the London game, it truly was a shock to the nerves. It reminded me of the first round qualifier against Antrim in 2015 where we were cruising at half time, Antrim got a goal back, built momentum, and ended up getting a second goal late in the game to beat us by 2 points. Thankfully this time and to start with a positive, we got the 2 points at the end in injury time to force a draw and keep ourselves alive in the Tailteann cup.

Of course, we should never have found ourselves in this position having started so well, 0-7 to 0-0 ahead after 19 minutes and fully deserving of a 6 point lead at half time. In fairness to London they were very accurate in the second half, build momentum and took their goals well.

After the Dublin game, we responded well with decent performances against Cavan and Offaly. We now have a chance to respond against Fermanagh next weekend in Enniskillen. A tough task no doubt but we have a chance. Wexford went there and got a draw in their Tailteann cup game and Offaly beat Fermanagh in the league. Wexford drew with London in the league. In many ways, there is not much between a lot of the teams in division 3 and division 4. Carlow have went from a mediocre national league to now finishing 2nd in their group beating Wicklow and Longford.

Realistically we have to say that to get second is a very tall order. Offaly at plus 9, Laois stand at -9.

If we take this year's league games into account, Laois went over to London and won by 10 points and Cavan went to Offaly and won by 7. Even with a repeat scenario, we would fall short.

Bottom line is that we need to give London the respect they deserve and try get the win that would get us out of the group. Then we can look at where we end up.

The preliminary quater final draw takes place on Saturday evening.

Going into Saturday evenings game, few would have given Laois a chance of getting a result, myself included. Offaly had a decent division 3 campaign and followed up in Leinster by beating Longford away, division 2 Meath at home and took 3rd place in division 2 Louth to extra time.

Having said that, we should have won. We owned the first half and should have been more than 6 up at the break. Fine scores kicked by a number of our lads but unfortunately a number of wides as well. Defence was excellent, well organised and 4 or 5 important turnovers in that first half.

We stemmed the tide then after Offaly kicked 2 early scores in the second half. At 1-9 to 0-7 up, we had a super opportunity to wrap things up with a second goal as we had a 3 v 2 overlap, but that chance was spurned.

Roche, who again was excellent in goals, made a great save to stop Offaly and his kickouts were excellent. We had a winning look when Corbet put over our last point to make it 1-11 to 0-8.

The sheer effort and committment caught up with us at the end. We ran out of gas and Offaly picked off late scores to level. Mark Barry was unlucky right at the end to snatch it for us, just narrowly wide.

Paddy O'Sullivan was excellent with 2 great points, Padraig Kirwan was excellent, Damon Larkin was brilliant in the middle and 2 fine scores. Defence overall was tigerish as a unit. Great to see Colm Murphy back in from the start. A good spread of scores in the forwards. Finn worked his socks off. There were more options to come in from the bench.

Plenty to build on. The players deserve more support. About 2000 at the game, Offaly outnumbered us about 3 to 1. We have London next in a neutral venue on June 3 and see where it takes us. A win gets us out of the group. Depending on score difference, we may do enough to nick 2nd place which would give us a home preliminary quater final.

A lot of positives to be taken out of yesterday.

The first half and in particular the first 20 minutes was some of the best football Laois have played in the last couple of years. Sublime scores from Mark Barry, Kieran Lillis, Padraig Kirwan, Paul Kingston and Evan O'Carroll who caused the Cavan defence a rake of problems and took a brilliant goal early on.

Speaking of defence, that was the most pleasing during the first half. Clearly a lot of work has been done in this regard since Dublin 3 weeks ago and it showed. Well organised, good tacking, a couple of great blocks against a Cavan team who are favourites for the Tailteann and a lot of them have Ulster titles to their name. Roche was excellent in the first half with good kickouts. Also, there was no way that was a penalty for Cavan, was never a footblock.

In fairness, Cavan dominated the 3rd quater of the game. They pushed up on our kickouts and we couldn't get hold of the ball. But we made them earn their scores, most of them were excellent shots from way out the park. Bare in mind that Cavan ran Armagh to 5 points a few weeks ago in the Ulster championship.

We showed great character and resolve to fight back from 9 points down to bring it back to 5 at 1-18 to 1-13 and we had momentum then. An effort fell into the keeper's hands then which would have brought it back to 4 but Cavan then went up and scored a great score to make the margin 6 points. Lads ran themselves into the ground and there was no shortage of desire. A late Cavan goal in injury time wrapped it up.

The lads have restored pride in the jersey and there should be a buzz in training as we get ready for Offaly next Saturday.

Sad to see what happened there on Sunday. We knew obviously that we would lose but just the manner of what unfolded there in the first half. Hard to just turn it on against one of the top 2 teams in the country when operating in division 4 and Dublin were on it from the start. They must have converted over 90% of their chances on the day. They were back to their brilliant best and I would tip them for All Ireland success in July. We needed them to be off colour and us to be unreal just to make it somewhat competitive. On a positive note, Dublin have only conceded more than one goal in a Leinster championship game 3 times since 2011 and we were one of those there on Sunday. We also did it in Kilkenny back in 2016. Will be interesting to see what resistance Kildare can put to Dublin next Sunday as Dublin chase their 13th Leinster title in a row.

In the immediate term, lets try and bounce back for the Tailteann cup. The draw will take place next week I believe. Last year we responded well to the defeat against Wicklow by really putting it up to the champions Westmeath in the 1st round of the Tailteann. This time there will be groups of 4 and we will go in as 3rd seeds. Hopefully we can work on a stronger defensive plan in the next few weeks and balance that out with the decent attacking threat that we have. Will be nice to have the chance to compete with teams of our standard on hopefully a dry summer sod and see how we go. No doubt the lads will be hurting but at least we have this competition to try and bounce back and finish the season on a better note.

As mentioned by others, was nice to have a decent support there on Sunday and hopefully this can continue for the upcoming games. I think there will be one home game, one away and one neutral.

Unlucky not to get promoted out of division 4. 10 points would be enough most years. Beat Sligo by 6, Wexford by 5, Carlow by 6, Waterford by 11 and London by 10 points. All convincing wins. So unlucky not to get at least a draw away in Leitrim. Wicklow deserved their win in Portlaoise.

Season not over. A lot of football still to be played. We have Wexford coming to Portlaoise on Easter Sunday and hopefully a chance to play Dublin in Portlaoise 2 weeks later.

Come May we have the Tailteann cup which should be very interesting with 3 group games followed by knockout stages. Lets get a run in this competition and see where it takes us.

A number of new lads have been introduced this year and they are doing well. We have some excellent forwards as well who would get on to most teams in the country. I'm looking forward to supporting them in the weeks ahead.

Our under 20s are doing well this year so I'm optimistic of them progressing through to senior in the coming years. We are through out of our group with a game to spare having beat Carlow and Longford. We also drew with Cork, drew with Roscommon and only lost to Galway by a point earlier this year. Last year, our under 20s ran Kildare to 2 points and they ended up in the All Ireland final. We contested provincial finals in 2019 and 2020.

Round 7 has arrived, best of luck to the lads today in Ruislip. Last time we went there we got out with a 2 point victory in 2018.

We were unlucky not to get a result last week against Leitrim. We responded well to the concession of the 2nd goal and played some good football at times.

Leitrim themselves have some sharp forwards, great support and with home advantage v Sligo today, I expect them to win. They clashed last year in the Tailteann cup and it went to extra time and penalties!

Leitrim and Laois to get promoted to division 3.

Laois Abu

Disappointing to lose last night but have to say that Wicklow fully deserved their win. Wicklow missed a number of scorable chances in the first half including balls dropping into our keeper's hands and their keeper missing 4 placed balls (one hitting the post). Our first goal came from a dreadful defensive mix up leading to the penalty. Mark Barry took both penalties very well.

Wicklow were much more economical in the second half with their goalkeeper Jackson kicking 2 out of 3 placed balls, their midfield began to dominate and they have a superb forward in Kevin Quinn.

For us, the loss of Evan O'Carroll was massive. Added to that Colm Murphy was unfortunate to pull his hamstring early on. Nearly all of our scores from play came from way out in both the first and second half and some excellent scores they were from Eoin Lowry, Paul Kingston, Kieran Lillis and Kevin Swayne who really tried hard.

Some positives were that we got game time to some of the newers members of our panel. Dylan Kavanagh returned to the team, Kevin Swayne gained more experience in the middle, Brian Daly had a go at full forward and Damon Larkin tried hard in the second half. They will learn from this.

We have a quick turnaround and a good chance to get back on track for promotion v Waterford next Saturday.

The games are coming thick and fast! Wicklow today followed by Waterford next Saturday.

Against Carlow, it was a very slow start with a lot of unforced errors and really Carlow should have been further in front before we got our first score after 20 minutes.

The main positive from last week was the response after their second goal. We really went at it and outscored Carlow by 1-10 to 0-1 for the rest of the game. Paul Kingston was on fire and Brian Byrne came up with 2 fantastic points.

We are missing Byrne and O'Carroll for todays game but it gives other panel members a chance to impress for what should be a competitive battle against Wicklow.

Laois v Waterford will be live today on tg4 at 5pm.