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Unfortunately the minor and U20 teams that have come through over the last few years have not contained those 2/3 special players that stand out head and shoulders over the rest of the team. These are the lads who will make a difference in improving a senior county team. Laois are producing plenty of decent underage players but these lads will not step up to improve a senior county team unfortunately.

Take our u20 this year. Very respectable showing in making a Leinster semi-final. However, outside of Shaun Fitzpatrick maybe I'm not too sure how many other players from that side will hugely improve the Laois team over the next few years. A lot of those players on a par with players from u20 sides of the last couple of years. We have an abundance of players who very capable of playing intercounty football (granted not at a high level). We just haven't seen those exceptional talents emerging from our underage teams since probably the days of the late 00s. Players that everyone in the county knew of as special talents from a very young age and excited to see progress to playing intercounty football.

I have definitely seen some green shoots with the standard of the minor championship and some of the performances on show in games. I also despair at the demise of Portlaoise as a force. For Portlaoise to be beaten in an underage game it should be as a result of a herculean effort on the part of the other team. They should not be canon fodder as they have proved in the games played this year.
   

Does Donie Brennan now become an option for the Laois County Board to consider as the next Senior Football boss following his ladies step down? Remarkable job done with the ladies

I'm not so sure it can be classed as a remarkable job. With the number of clubs and strength of Ladies football within the county it was shocking that Laois were barely even competing at intermediate level for the number of years with a lot of our better players opting not to commit to the Laois set up.

In fairness he got many of those players back onboard and things progressed from there and it was a happy camp for the last couple of years he was over them. However, they are at a level now that they should be at and the test of his ability as a manager would have been to see of he could take them another step or two up the ladder and properly compete with the likes of Mayo, Cork or a Meath.

To hand him the job of Laois senior football manager off the back barely beating Wexford in an intermediate final and staying in senior championship by defeating a woeful Cavan side this year wouldn't be my call.   

Pat Critchley summed it up perfectly in his book. When he went into Scoil Chriost Rí it didn't have a basketball tradition. He worked on establishing it and creating buy in from the pupils and the school. Built it up over the years and then over time you can look back and see that you have created a tradition and one that the school is proud of and wants to maintain. 

CBS Portlaoise should be able to compete at the highest level of Leinster Schools Football with the pick available to them. The backbone of Laois minor teams should be passing through that school. Sadly that is not or no where near the case. You see Naas CBS with probably a similar size in pupils dominating the Leinster Schools the last number of years-no coincidence that Kildare are also competing impressively at minor and U21 level. It is all connected. Granted you need teachers who are willing to commit to giving up lunch times and organising after school training and coaching to ensure teams are run properly-if the school doesn't have those teachers willing to do so then it is not going to happen. Portlaoise CBS winning the South Leinster Colleges Senior Football League 'B' Shield this year in a nonsense final should not be the standard that that school is at. It is 17 years since a Laois side were in a Leinster Schools Final. In that time, schools or combined schools from Wicklow, Louth, Longford, Offaly, a number of stand alone Westmeath and Wexford schools have reached finals along with Kildare, Meath and Dublin schools. It is further example of how football in the county and proper coaching/investment in football has been slipping over a long period of time that has left us pretty much at the bottom of the pile.

It was an inevitable outcome. On reflection, Billy took a job that no one else wanted. He didn't command an extortionate fee like some other outside managers might demand and treated the role like a full time job. He had a philosophy on how football should be played considering the players at our disposal and tried to incorporate that into the Laois team's style of playing. He had some successes-O'Byrne Cup finalists 2022 and championship wins over Wexford, Fermanagh and Limerick. His commitment could not be faulted or questioned.

Granted relegation from division 3 when there were sides weaker than us (on paper) in the division and failure again to gain promotion from division 4 was disappointing. Some horrendous championship performances to boot over the two years as well and his  side line behaviour left a lot to be desired at times.

I know Billy will hold onto his ambitions to manage at intercounty level- perhaps take the learnings of the last two years and return to club level management for 2024 and beyond. Climb the ladder again so to speak.

On separate note- my previous post wasn't against regional sides. My argument was that they would have to be very carefully drawn. If you had one regional team made up of predominantly hurling first clubs you could see how that might run into trouble. If incorporating regional sides and want to improve championship you need all of the regional sides to be strong and have realistic ambitions of competing.

I think the leagues have worked very well in how they were restructured. Now, it's time to tackle the championship structures.

I get the argument regarding a regional team allowing some talented hurlers have the opportunity to play football at the highest club level. However, I'm not sure how willing some of the clubs would be to have their players playing football for a regional entity one week and then turn around and play championship hurling a week later and back to football again the week after that. You are risking injury, fatigue and perhaps missing out of key training sessions to play for a side that isn't to the betterment of your "club". I know in Tipperary the Loughmore-Castleiney players found playing championship football one week and hurling the next great and playing and winning championship games week on week really drove them on. However, in that example they are playing for their own club and playing and training together as a collective and could tweak things in training etc. to meet the needs of the players and the club.

You saw a few years ago Ciaran Burke who hurls with Harps also went playing championship football with Crettyard. Both teams went deep into their championship seasons and he broke down with injury due to overplaying. Crettyard lost the intermediate final that year and Burke would have been a big player for them. I think he played the final injured but you couldn't imagine the bigger hurling clubs in Laois risking similar situations occurring.

I personal wouldn't like to see a regional team from the predominantly hurling area in the senior football championship if they were fielding weakened teams that only act as canon fodder and serve no purpose to a restructured Laois football championship. Careful thought would have to go into the composition of the regional teams if we were to go down that route.         

In our last serious strategic plan of 2018-2020 developed by a group of very respected GAA people within the county the following was noted: 

The Review Committee is very concerned at the
current range of activities for which GDAs are
responsible and the almost complete lack of input
and oversight from any volunteer members of the
Association in the county. The recommendations
which are outlined in this report are aimed at
addressing these shortcomings. In particular, they
are aimed at delivering clearer work programmes
for GDAs, improved supervision/monitoring of their
work, greater input from volunteer members of the
Association plus improved governance and oversight
of all coaching and games programmes in Laois. The
proposed new coaching and games structure for Laois
is shown in the schematic in Appendix B at the end of
this section of the report.

Over the last five years can the County Board really stand over what they have done and implemented to alleviate these serious concerns. From what I have seen in Laois GAA is that these concerns have only exasperated in that time or where some positive change has been made it has not been sustained or developed to the levels that it should (in some cases granted people have taken up positions to only move on again after a short time which is disruptive).

Mid rank counties like Cavan, Roscommon, Sligo, Down, Offaly, Kildare who have invested serious time, people, resources and money into juvenile coaching and player development in the last couple of years have started or will start to see the fruits of this over the next couple of years at senior level as these players filter into the senior set up. I fear that the gap from Laois to some of these mid rank counties will grow further if we do not tackle the concerns identified in a now 5 year old strategic report with both short and long term solutions.

The clubs in Laois do need to step up as well. A proper review meeting should be called and do what they do in Limerick- each club must be represented by their Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer, County Board Delegate, Coiste na Nog officer and at least one current player. Identify what is achievable and be realistic in what change can be brought about-identify how the county board can support the clubs in coaching and player development. Provide the necessary supports and funding so that you gain the buy in from the clubs- clubs must respond in kind by implementing and supporting these initiatives/structures etc. Identify what has worked in clubs e.g. Ballyroan (football), the Harps (hurling)- can this be replicated in other clubs, can clubs like The Harps and Ballyroan be supported further to step up coaching even further to take it to a new level again. Small steps but it gets the ball rolling.

I think people are looking at Sugrue's time with Laois through rose tinted glasses. Granted we achieved back to back promotions in the league and made a Leinster final (playing division 4 sides) but when we stepped up to face a half decent side we were blown out of the water by each of these teams too. In the division 3 league games that we got promoted we played in Croker twice and on Croker's open and firm pitch we were easily defeated by Louth and Westmeath in those games. If memory serves me correctly Louth could have taken us for a half dozen goals that day. In the bigger championship games, Cork blitzed us for 5-19 and Monaghan probably should have put up a similar score line the year before only for an unbelievable goal saving display by Graham Brody. He recorded 6 one-on-one saves that day. Meath also walked in 3 goals against us in a Leinster semi-final and probably left a further 3 goal scoring chances behind them as well. That Laois side of 2018/2019 is probably also stronger than the Laois side at Billy's disposal in 2023 with players like Attrite and Gareth Dillon available at the time.

The argument that if we had a different management in place it would improve Laois dramatically doesn't stack up when you look at the evidence. Laois simply don't have the players to compete at a high level at the moment. A new management team might improve things  slightly but regardless of who is managing us it is lunacy to think that we could have gone toe-to-toe with an in form Down team. Need to put all our efforts into revitalising the underage set-up in the county at both club and school level and meaningfully look to tackle the Portlaoise problem where a town of 20000 plus is a GAA wasteland if you drill into the actual participation numbers.       

The first and most important ingredient to an intercounty footballer today is pace. It's incredible to think that within the county we genuinely do not have any players with any real speed. Even most mid rank counties would have at least a half dozen players with serious pace to either man mark, get up and down the field or to win ball played in front of them and create attacking opportunities. Ross Munnelly last year at 39 years of age was probably still the quickest forward we had on the panel over the first 5-10 yards. That tells you everything. Losing the likes of Attrite a few years ago was a huge loss as we could not replace him and what he brought to the Laois defence. Over the last 6-7 years he has been the only defender to come through who was truly capable of properly competing at inter county level. We have a lot of very fine footballing players in there now who are comfortable on the ball and will no doubt do a very fine job for their clubs in the club championship where the pace of the game will be that bit slower. However, as yesterday showed, footballing ability is no good if you cannot keep pace with your opponent. Down had their homework done for Laois and knew exactly what to do to hurt us.

I don't know how much you can coach speed into a player but if a lot of those Laois players want to stay playing at intercounty level it is something that they will need to work on over the off season. At the beginning of the league last year and again this year we recorded what appeared to be impressive away victories to Louth and Sligo. What these games showed was that on heavy pitches where pace is taken out of the equation we have players of good footballing ability.   

Very optimistic SCFC. If we are within 6 points of Down by the final whistle I would be very surprised. Down are really motoring at the minute. I cannot see our luck extending to a 4th game in a row. Hopefully they players can defy expectation and pull off a shock victory.

Laois were 7/2 to beat Fermanagh and 2/1 to beat Limerick.. Hopefully can defy the bookies odds for a third time. Laois will have to be more cynical if they are to stop Down. They are masters at the counter attack so our half forward line e.g. will need to be prepared to take yellow cards and engage in some cynical fouling at certain times. We cannot allow Mason, Magill, and Guinness to carry and move the ball at pace against our defence. Limerick showed that we can be opened up easily and exposed. We cannot be as nice as we have in previous games, especially against London where we let them run at us, gain some momentum and play football in the second half.

Laois were unlucky. They were coming good by the end of the Joe McDonagh and had they made the final I think they would have been too strong for either Carlow and Offaly. Injuries and looking to peak later in the season backfired as Carlow grabbed a fortuitous last minute penalty to scupper Maher's plans. I hope everyone he had in this year stays on for next year. We will have a league campaign and Joe McDonagh where we should win more games than we will lose. Will be good for confidence and it will help integrate some of our u20s from the last year or two who have showed true potential into the side without shipping big beatings from likes of Tipperary or Kilkenny. It's not ideal to find ourselves in the position we are in but we could claim a league and Joe McDonagh title next year which would be positive for the squad's upward trajectory.       

I think he has a strong argument for staying in the job. The players seem united, no one has dropped off the panel. Performances have improved. The problem with an inexperienced coach was that they have to learn on the job. Mistakes are part of the course. He's certainly made them. There are definitely issues I have regarding his management style but if the team continue on an upward trend with their performance against Down I think he will be given a third year in the job.

We have rode our luck so to speak against Limerick. However, players must be credited for staying in the game and finishing so strongly. Hopefully we can put a full 70 minutes together against Down. If we reproduce the period just before half time and the first 15 minutes of the second half against Limerick we could see ourselves on the end of a 10 point beating. Down were hugely impressive and efficient against Cavan the last day. If they replicate that performance they will probably prove too strong for us even if we play to our best. I can't see a Down team who are full of confidence passing up those opportunities that Limerick did in front of goal.

Any update on Kingston's fitness? He will be a big loss if he's not fit to start the next day.

Kerry rely on the same faces?? From the game yesterday it would appear that all 15 starters and those that came on are contributing nicely. Geaney didn't play and he'll be chomping at the bit to get back in the next day as well. Half forwards of Spillane and Moynahan worked exceptionally hard tracking back and carrying the ball. Kerry, like Dublin, are timing their runs to hit form at the business end of the championship. For Mayo or Galway to win the All-Ireland from the position they are in now is asking a lot. It would require four big performances one after the other to win an All-Ireland which is a very tall task. Galway could potentially have to defeat Mayo, Kerry, Derry and Dublin in four consecutive games to win Sam. If they do achieve this feat it will be one of the most hard earned All-Ireland titles ever won. 

Momentum of win at weekend should stand to Laois going into the Limerick game. Limerick threw their game last week and therefore should be well rested leading into next weekend's game. You'd imagine there will not be too much between the sides. Timmons will be a massive lost. O'Flynn could come in and hopefully give a performance. He is someone who looked to have all the attributes a few years back and it hasn't quiet taken off for him yet at intercounty level. Colm Murphy returning from injury has certainly improved our forward line. We are playing with four scoring threats and Finn and Lowry are working hard for the team to round out the six forwards. For all the criticism of Billy I liked the set up of the team at the weekend-granted Fermanagh going down to 14 men was a huge help in the second half as they visibly tired themselves in the last quarter. Also had they taken that guilt edged goal chance that rattled the crossbar you'd have feared for Laois. Get our tactics/set up right next weekend and we could be looking at a Tailteann Cup semi-final. Getting the mother and father of all shocks against London may have been the wake up call that this management and players needed.