Messages

Lets hope we don't see a repeat of last year. Carlow have been very competitive at U21 grade last couple of years and will relish playing Laois. A lot of work has gone into this group of players the last number of years and hopefully they can seize the opportunity presented to them with such a favourable Leinster championship draw.   

For a town with a population of over 20,000 to have only one GAA club is not ideal. So many potential GAA players are lost as a result of this within the county as children in Portlaoise ending up choosing other sports like soccer. For a small county like Laois, who are also trying to be competitive in both codes, we could badly do greater numbers playing the game in Portlaoise. Tralee for example, is a town of similar size with at least four strong GAA clubs who all have their strongholds within the town and excellent underage structures in place.     

I wonder what McNulty makes of all this. He was developing a system that would allow Laois compete with the top teams in country (promotion to Division 1,beating Monaghan and challenging Donegal and Dublin) and we ditch him. Couple of years later and having taken two or three significant steps backwards (losing to Antrim and relegation to Division 3) we, with couple weeks to go to start of championship try to re-introduce a game plan that takes months if not years to properly implement (the same one McNulty was developing). I really feel the last number of years have been badly wasted with what is a decent panel of players.     

From reading Ogie's last message, hurlers can't be faulted for the effort and preparation they are putting into having themselves ready for the championship. I know we have lost a number of players from last year and as a result may not achieve the desire results but they have to be commended for their time given and dedication. Hopefully the seeds are being sown for future years as there are still a lot of relatively young/ inexperienced hurlers on the panel who you would hope can develop in next 3/4 years. Cheddar must be commended for this even if results don't go our way. It is looking like offaly in Tulllamore- what a realistic incentive for this current squad-to beat Offaly two years running, home and away.
 

 

The question is-was Cunningham's involvement with the Laois senior team enforced on Lillis or was he open to the idea of bringing in additional help after a poor league campaign and with championship only couple of weeks away. By his own admission in interviews after some league games he was lost for explanations as to our poor/inept performances. The previous posters comments on our management teams actions (lack of cohesion/tactical instructions) was very evident to a number of us who were in attendance on Sunday. We need management that is proactive tactically if plan A is not working or if positional changes need to be made quickly. Hopefully Cunningham can add this to our current set-up (it will be interesting to see how Lillis works alongside Cunningham who for all intensive purposes is a now joint-manager). I was worried from talking to different people that some of the players were already writing this year off. Hopefully this appointment can add some badly needed impetus and even if we do fall to Dublin that we can have a decent campaign through the qualifiers with the goal of reaching a quarter-final.