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Great win. Didn't look like it early in the second half when we went 5 down against the wind. Down got a bit of a spurt before half time and pushed the league to four. It flattered them i thought as we had a lot of possession but found it hard to break down their blanket defense. We were over cautious at times. The two changes at half time worked a dream especially Donie. He went centre forward and offered a fulcrum, Begley to wing back and Dillon back to the corner. Unlucky on campion as he picked up a soft yellow from a picky ref. Work rate went up and a few real standouts, donie's Point from play and a turnover on the sideline lifted the team. Went really direct with Donie, Evan and Murphy doing damage. Once we got a run on them they were vulnerable. Should have had more goals, if only Evan would lift his head at times and Paul hitting the crossbar. Begley went asleep for their goal but we powered through to the end.

Great team effort, which gives us a great start. Backs were ok. The mark caught them out a few times. Piggot looks like he will be centre back. Midfield worked hard, jol took a bit of abuse. Probably both two alike in that they sit deep, which could be the game plan. Sean Byrne very intelligent player. Like the look of him. Donie made a big difference, one big mark in particular. Boyle kicked three points and got on a lot of ball, very good passer. Murphy great second half, really showed well and one great catch over his head. Evan the star man and could have doubled his score. He could do anything with frees though. Looks in great form. Not Paul Kingston's best night. Good to see Paul C finishing his goal after the miss.

Interesting team, would not have seen it from the matches I have seen. Must be a few injuries. Any word on who is still on the panel

The DCU / Carlow game was literally a game of two halves. DCU started like a train were 1-6 to 0-1 up very quickly. they stretched out to 1-11 to 0-3 by half time. Carlow organised themselves at half time and completely dominated the second half. They dominated the midfield and the DCU forwards couldn't get space. Whether its a tactic or not but they fouled throughout the field and gave away a lot of scoring frees. I don't know whether they were missing many but I thought they would be better.

i think they lost well to Kerry

It wasn't a bad game. Weather wasn't bad and the pitch was excellent. You definitely learn a bit about lads tonight. Wicklow pushed hard from the start and were very aggressive in the tackle. They certainly got leeway from the ref. Despite them been the better team they got two soft goals, especially the second one off the post. Evan was excellent in the first half. Completely different team in the second half and there lack of changes hit them as they ran out of steam. Super pass by donie to the brother for the first goal and a little Darby like nudge by Paul for the second got us over the line.

Keogh made a few excellent saves, Timmons was very good at full. Both corner backs were ok with campion having a great second half. Tried a load of half backs with buggie probably the best. Jol went off injured but we still him a partner for him. Tyrell is a bit raw but meaney wasn't to bad. Bar Evan and Paul Kingston the rest of the forwards worked hard without scoring. Donie kicked a few nice points when he was involved. Boyle will probably be the starting 11 as he is a very good passer. The panel is very big at the moment, it will be interesting to see who gets trimmed

That was Aaron dunphy not Aaron Bergin 

we would also have the makings of a decent junior team, but we don't bother entering that competition anymore.

well that didn't go to well, I actually thought we might be a bit better when I saw the team selected. The game was over at half time and we had half a chance of a goal just before the break when Gary Walsh one on one with the keeper and he decided to chip and the ball and it floated over the bar. at least a goal might have made the second half interesting. 1-3 to 0-3 in the second half and I think there was no score for the last 15 or 16 minutes from either side which was possibly a better view of the game. A bit like Westmeath this time last year Meath looked a bit further ahead of us in at present, not surprising looking at some of their upcoming games in the league and the fact that their management are under a bit of pressure after under performing last year. They are going hard for this trophy reflected by the amount of regulars they played and bringing on the likes of graham reilly when we were trying new guys. it was also obvious that there regulars are a bit ahead in fitness than our ones that played. I think 24 players had a run and it was always going to be that we were going to lack a bit of shape. certainly the game and the conditions suited a bigger meath team who bottled us up constantly in attack even if the ref gave them a bit of lee way in terms of physical tackling. At the same time our forwards were awful considering we started four regular enough players, the lack of ball winner killed us and there was little or no link up play. if we don't move the ball fast in the forwards the three hand pass rule is going to kill us as we have come to rely on handpassing quickly like most teams on it.

on a night when no one really did themselves any justice, campion tried hard in the corner. its hard to make your debut and find yourself marking a fast corner forward with half the field to run into. in fairness he stuck to his task. The rest of the defence were at sea bar Timmons in patches. We were swamped at midfield and the forwards were really poor though it would be good to look at Byrne and Scully again. Byrne looks to have a bit about him. Interesting to see how big the panel is at the moment. We togged out 24, Fennell was injured from the programme, so it would be interesting to see what others are to could back. obviously the likes of donie, Begley and evan will appear along with hopefully the likes of frank Flanagan, lillis, Dillon, boyle and a few others from portlaoise but I wonder if any players from o dempseys are training with the panel. I dont know what the position is with others like eoin buggie, Kelly from st. joes, moore and murphy from port is.

that Moorefield fella on the Kildare forum is some man to keep an argument going.

i am trying to collect all the county final programmes for this year. managed to get a good few,

looking for help with some of the harder ones if they are out there,

Monaghan - hurling and football
Donegal - Hurling
Louth - Hurling
Meath - hurling and football
Antrim - Hurling and football
Longford - hurling
Cork - Hurling and Football
Sligo - Hurling
Tyrone - Hurling
Armagh - Hurling and Football
Down - Hurling
Leitrim - Hurling
Kilkenny - Football

if you have any for sale I can be contacted on kheffernan75@icloud.com or Facebook GAA Programme Collectors page

It sickens me that as soon as a team starts becoming dominant the first question people ask is " ohh should we split them into two clubs" Portlaoise should be focusing on winning a Leinster this year beacause a Leinster title is badly due in Portlaoise ,especially for the size of the club. I can't see Portlaoise being split in two either , Tullamore has one club , so has Naas, it's not uncommon .

Same where I live, lots of big towns, one team in celbridge, one in maynooth, one in Kilcock, two in leixlip but both average at best. lot of soccer teams though due to the influence of the blue plague. plenty of teams in the rural areas around these towns though.

U-16's beaten by 12 points by wicklow

Saunders with Portlaoise is meant to be very good, have never seen him myself.

Mentioned him a while back, saw him last year. I think they were trying him at full back for a while earlier in the year

From seeing every game from o byrne cup to our exit last week it was great to see it improve from how bad they were last year. A lot of players were tried but many didn't make the grade and we kind of ended up with the same team, but one that was motivated better. All credit to sugure in this aspect. Achieving promotion and getting to the Leinster final was great, the lack of quality and squad depth caught up with us when we faced the better teams. Tactically at times we were poor as well. I hope john stays on, he deserves it for the work he put in. I think div. 3 will be tough but it might help develop new players better. John himself, probably learned a lot and if he stays on their is plenty to work on in terms of the team and his own tactics. Hopefully the better exposure and good will towards the team might bring a bit more badly needed finance in. Hopefully it also might attract more players to put in the massive effort needed to compete at this level. Getting the right players or developing them will be one of the big problems.

We have a good keeper, and looks like a decent back up. We have an issue with kickouts in that we loose a lot of them when we go long. Not having a mobile midfielder doesn't help. Our captain will be a big plus when back and Dillon has developed well. Nerney has a lot going for him but we are still light on full back line options. We have a ball of middle third players, nearly all of them not at the required standard for top level. It's a pity that begley was not a few years younger. Defending has been a problem all year especially runners from deep or one on one tackling. A lot of scores have come down the sides.If we are going to play a sweeper I still would prefer Lillis in that role. Both midfielders went well but are too alike, the lack of pace or an attacking option to get ahead or come off the shoulder was a rare enough. It's hard to play withdrawn wing forwards and not have midfielders coming through in support. The forward play has been up and down. The issues had been mentioned several times, bar Evan that distinct lack of killer pace to stretch defences. Paul Kingston looked the part as an 11 but struggled in the last few games. Free taking has been an issue, for whatever reason we have missed a lot of simple frees, vital in games. I would hope that Evan would get some coaching in this regard, he was still missing the same frees in the last game that he was missing in the sigerson.

Hopefully a few players of that needed quality can be found, there are a few away for the summer that hopefully will return. An odd Bolter to come through, someone like Flanagan from the town. Interesting summer.

I thought the defending was awful in the first half, they had 18 shots at goal, 14 scored, most of which were unopposed. We saw how Fermanagh blocked up the channels and physically dominated them, but we never got close. The placement of Glynn was a disaster. Asking him to sit deep was a bad call, he ran around aimlessly but it also allowed o Connell to push up and kick two points unopposed. With Begley getting the runaround and out of the centre we could have easily planted Lillis in the centre and left him there and switch Glynn back out to midfield. At least it would have stopped the free runners through the middle.  With Donie being covered by two in full forward we are least would have had no spare men in our half. For some reason we played a kind of zonal system in the middle third. This allowed them so many kickouts  especially on the terrace side unopposed. When we did push up everybody was clustered on the stand side of the pitch. A simple basketball type move with a runner from the group and Rory beggan  dinked a brillant kickout into our half which got them a score but the whole half back line was on the other side of the pitch and we had no one bar jol to chase him. I thought this was real naive stuff