Messages

Yes, with Paul Begley unfit, we don't have too many options for the corner back positions. I wonder is Gearoid Hanrahan fit? He looked like a more natural corner back to me than Damien O Connor. Still, apart from the corner back positions, it looks to be a team with a good mix of pace and power so hoping for the best.

Very quiet in here on the week of a big match. Any news or rumours at all? Assuming McMahon is still not available but everyone else is fit, my team would be:

1. Brody
2. Robbie
3. Timmons
4. Paul Begley
5. Strong
6. Attride (switching with Robbie depending on matchups)
7. Begley
8. JOL
9. Quigley
10. Donoher
11. Meredith
12. O Carroll
13. Ross
14. Donie
15. Shiels

I think I understand the general tone of the posts on here. Most people seem to be saying that we have a good team and it's important to make the best of them. And that's fair enough.

At the same time, I think the tone here is a bit disrespectful of Pat Critchley and the other mentors. These good players didn't just fall out of the sky. While nature might throw a few excellent natural hurlers our way every now and then, a county our size doesn't tend to get enough of them at the same time to genuinely challenge for silverware. The fact that they are there now is a credit to all of the people who have dedicated a lot of time and effort to developing them.

I'm not living in the county and I don't get to see these lads playing very often but I was really impressed with the team. I don't think Offaly were abysmal but we made them look average. It's true that we let them back into it a few times with a few individual mistakes but generally we were a far better than them. Although I haven't seen all that much hurling over the last few years, the ball skills and intelligence that they hurled with was better than anything I've seen for a long time. Despite what the earlier poster was saying, I think beating Offaly is always an achievement but I'm sure the team are not content with that and will want to push on from there.

I reckon it'll take a good team to beat these lads and I hope they keep up whatever it is they're doing!! 

I don't think any of us can tell what was really in the heads of Laois players and supporters on the way up to that match. If there was an arrogance in their heads, it would beggar belief, based on where we've come from (the memory of the 10-goal drubbing at the hands of Cork has hardly been wiped from the memory yet, has it?).

On the other hand, I'm sure every Laois person was travelling with confidence. The recent results against Antrim were generally in our favour, there seemed to be some turmoil in the Antrim camp and the bookies had us at warm favourites. This does not imply a "right to win" - just a confidence that we could win.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I would be surprised in Antrim didn't have the same confidence going into the game - they would have been focusing on the points that suited their arguments.

This is, of course, a setback for Laois but hopefully some lessons will have been learned for the remaining games.

Feel sorry for the likes of Carlow who are losing players like Brendan Murphy for the summer. There's no doubt that if he was from Kerry, he'd be going nowhere. We had our own exodus just a few short years ago (and actually did alright taking everything into account) but it's a bit of a sickener for everyone who's put so much into it.

Having said that, I'd rather be playing them without him so I'm not trying to encourage him back or anything......

Absolutely delighted to see Meredith and McMahon coming back. No hope to reverse O' Leary's decision to retire??

Don't know how the existing bunch would feel about it, but I also think there should be some efforts made to add to the squad now. We know that most of our squad are well capable of doing a good job but the extra strength in depth could be crucial later in the year.  You don't see it happening too often but it would be good at this stage I think.

I should also have complimented Rory Hickey on what is an increasingly rare thing in inter-county football refereeing circles - a good game. He missed a few things but he showed a lot of common sense and talked a lot to the players, which I think is always a positive sign.  It's hard to understand why there is such vast differences in the standard of refereeing in the country.

Back from Newry and happy to be still in the Division.

Today's match showed us clearly how important Donie Kingston is to the team and how threadbare our defensive resources are.

For a match that had so much importance to both teams, it didn't feel particularly intense. Down were the better team on the day - they were much more incisive going forward but you have to think their job was made a lot easier by our defensive line up and system. Mark Timmons was listed on the programme at No. 3 and No. 4, which would have been nice. I don't think it's fair to ask O Connor or Attride to play in corner back positions and I don't think it's very clever either, particularly when you have Robbie Kehoe, Gearoid Hanrahan and Paul Begley all in the squad. Having said that, no corner back would be able to cope with what was being thrown at them - it was unbelievable how little pressure was put on the Down man with the ball at times. On at least half a dozen occasions all the Laois lads were just following runners and leaving the man with the ball the freedom of the pitch to do what he liked. At least 2 of the goals came from this. It was ridiculous really. I thought the management were especially poor here and really did nothing about it all through. Mark Timmons was again excellent though and snuffed out Laverty when he was finally moved on to him.

Quigley's fielding was absolutely superb again - incredible really. Of the forwards, Evan O Carroll's workrate stood out and he scored 4 or 5 superb long range frees. I thought Tom Shiels looked very lively too and was more than surprised to see him taken off. For sure, he was the only one that looked like he might come up with a goal. Boyle had a very quiet game, Billy didn't contribute, Ross kept getting bottled up and Donoher, although he was busy, didn't get as much work done as usual. I had suggested Finn at FF but he didn't contribute much either when he came on.

Overall though, it was a tired looking performance to me. They didn't really deserve to get anything out of the game and were lucky that other results went their way.

This bunch of players seem to work really hard and I think deserve to hold on to the Div 2 status. It would be really fantastic if we could add a few more to the squad for the championship - we especially need to increase our defensive options but if we do we should give most teams outside the top 5 or 6 a decent run for their money.

I saw Billy play at full forward a couple of years ago in an O Byrne cup game against Dublin. Rory O Carroll was Dublin's full back that day and, in fairness, Billy had an excellent game. If he was able to reproduce that kind of performance, I don't think anyone could complain. The problem is that, in my opinion, he doesn't have the legs any more and he has never been a score getter. I just think Finn is more mobile, a better fielder and is probably more accurate too. He's obviously less aggressive (or at least appears that way).

An alternative would be to put Evan O Carroll at 14 and bring O Connor or Finn into wing forward but that, for me, would be changing the balance of the team too much.

One way or another, it's a huge task on Sunday. Although their position in the league reflects the story so far, I don't think these lads deserve to end up in Div 3.

My team for Sunday would be:

1. Brody
2. Begley (if fit)
3. Timmons
4. Kehoe
5. Strong
6. Hanrahan (if fit, switching with Robbie depending on matchups) or Attride
7. Begley
8. Quigley
9. JOL
10. Donoher
11. Boyle
12. O' Carroll
13. Ross
14. Finn
15. Shiels

The point I'm making is that the camp will know exactly what happened and how it happened. IF it's the case that Billy Sheehan did something stupid, which led to the sending off of Donie Kingston, the management should know what to do.

As regards his commitment, I would personally rather see him use his energy to focus on what's happening on the ball, rather than constantly getting involved in verbals with opposing players off the ball. As far as I'm concerned, he adds very little - I wouldn't confuse passion with shouting into opposing players faces. The Dubs were at that a few years ago under Caffrey and it was only later when they stopped all that and focused on the things that matter that they started to win All-Irelands.

Donie Kingston gets sent off but you indicate the stupid one here is Billy Sheehan, don't understand that logic. Its clear from above you don't like him and you have your mind made up anyway.

My point was that if the stupid actions of any Laois player led to the sending off of Donie Kingston, the management should know what to do with that player. It is quite conceivable that the stupid actions of one Laois player could lead to the sending off of another. If Donie Kingston was dragged into a conflict with opposing players because one of his teammates was winding those opposing players up, it's not Donie Kingstons fault - he can hardly be expected to stand by while one of his teammates is being assaulted on the ground. This would be my view whether the culprit is Billy Sheehan or anyone else.

Aside from that incident, yes I admit that I have made up my mind about Billy Sheehan having watched him for the last 8 or 10 years. I don't see what he brings to the team and I don't think it's a coincidence that our performance levels generally increased when he was on the bench.

The point I'm making is that the camp will know exactly what happened and how it happened. IF it's the case that Billy Sheehan did something stupid, which led to the sending off of Donie Kingston, the management should know what to do.

As regards his commitment, I would personally rather see him use his energy to focus on what's happening on the ball, rather than constantly getting involved in verbals with opposing players off the ball. As far as I'm concerned, he adds very little - I wouldn't confuse passion with shouting into opposing players faces. The Dubs were at that a few years ago under Caffrey and it was only later when they stopped all that and focused on the things that matter that they started to win All-Irelands.

One more thing. If it was Billy Sheehan's actions that led to the dismissal of Donie Kingston last week, I hope if anything worthwhile comes out of it that the management will finally see that nothing good comes from leering in people's faces or winding people up, particularly when there is nothing to back it up on the pitch. I just hope they take proper note

We can talk all day about negative tactics in the game but it's up to teams to adapt and I think that's a fascinating aspect; I don't like all this hand passing but it's within the rules.
By big beef is refereeing. My God. What is going to be done about the standard of referees. It's too easy dismiss critics as having no respect - sure we would all like to say nothing about are but they are so so bad.
Game after game we see refs giving one side an easy ride and hammering their opponents. then maybe after all the damage is done, after token free are given to balance out the free count. It is shocking.
One minute 4 players surround a player and pulverise him and the ball carrier is penalised for over carrying, the next incident for the opposition results in a free against the tacklers......can't accept this as being ok.
The assessment of referees is the greatest waste of time. The assessors seem to know as little about the game as a man from Mongolia. They are obsessed with presentation, socks up, number of subs warming up, incursions onto the pitch and never pick up on the consistent inconsistencies that occur in a single match! That's  mouthful I know.
I'd agree kingston probably was hard done by and Billy Sheehan may have been he cause of it. He gets under my skin. Chalky White got away with murder last night and should have been sent off but cutely Kildare subbed him before it happened.

Agree with every word of this. The nature of the game is that the rules are not always easy to interpret but the lack of common sense shown by so many referees is mind-boggling.

I didn't see what happened myself but for sure no Kildare player seemed to be making any issue of it (which in fairness was the case all through). JOL swung an arm a bit dangerously at a player behind him in the first half and that player (No. didn't make too much of an issue of that either in fairness to him.

Sick after that yesterday.

Overall, I suppose you have to credit Kildare for the way they came back to snatch the game at the end but I don't agree that the better team won yesterday. As someone else said, despite everything, we had the game in our own hands and poor decision-making in front of goal probably cost us the game in the end.

As far as I was concerned, our key men and in particular our midfielders were abused the whole way through the game. The Kildare tactic seemed to be to focus on the man rather than the ball when the ball was on its way into the midfield area. Our lads got no protection at all from the referee and I have to take my hats off to the two of them for holding their discipline in what must have been a really frustrating evening for them.

The same thing goes (to a lesser extent) for Kingston. Although he had fewer sneaky digs to contend with, he was being pulled and dragged the whole game long. I have been following Kingston since the beginnng of his career and of all the Laois players to be accused of aggression and off-the-ball messing, he would be the very last on this list. I often thought that his biggest weakness was that he doesn't show enough physical aggression (compared to the likes of Michael Murphy). I certainly don't ever remember seeing him sent off before (maybe the earlier poster is confusing him with Conor Meredith) and he seemed very surprised to get the red card. I didn't see anything happening but for sure nobody ended up on the deck and nobody got hurt. Maybe Donnelly's Hollow could tell us about the nature of his reaction?? At the same time, it looked at one stage as though Tom Shiels might not escape from the ground with all his limbs. Some of the tackles on him could only be described as an assault for which he wasn't even awarded a free, never mind a punishment for the culprit. It was also clear that the Kildare man fouled the ball in the lead up to the goal.

This, by the way, is the same referee who did such a great job of the All-Ireland u-21 semi final between Cavan and Dublin last year when he robbed Cavan of at least a draw and had to be escorted out of the grounds. How they let people like that continue to referee big matches is beyond me. Anyway, I certainly hope there is some video evidence that exonerates Donie because we desperately need him for the game in Down.

Given the shortage of resources, I thought the backs did very well. Timmons was again masterful and for almost 70 minutes Kildare had no serious chance of a goal. Robbie Kehoe did the sweeping job very well and Colm Begley and Strong were both good again (although Darren had a few wild attempts at scores in the first half when a bit more calmness might have been better). On the down side, we conceded several soft frees again (some of which were very dubious indeed) but nevertheless we have to be careful about that.

The forwards didn't quite click yesterday although you did get the impression that there could be goals in them. Although Niall Donoher had an excellent game in general play, a few crucial misses in the second half cost us. Same for Evan O Carroll. Had a really good game overall but wasn't quite able to finish all his chances clinically - the goal chance in particular wasn't really a goal chance from the angle he was at and it was an opportunity wasted. Conor Boyle sprayed the ball around very well but couldn't get the scoreboard ticking. Ross had another off day. Although Paul Kingston has lost out in 75% of the balls that went into his area, I think it was very harsh to make the change so quickly, especially given the fact that he is only finding his feet at this level - I'm not sure what impact it has on young lads' long-term confidence. Having said that, Tom Shiels really looks like he could turn into a super player - a few things didn't quite work for him but he clearly has what it takes. Overall, I don't think we would have too much to fear from Kildare come the championship.

Although I wouldn't necessarily see them as automatic starters now, it would be really great to have O'Leary, McMahon and Meredith available for the championship squad. I wonder is there any chance of that happening?