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Probably more accurate to say that football is in a sorry state. Realistically out of 33 championship teams only 2 or 3 have a chance in hell of winning Sam (Dublin, Kerry and maybe Donegal or Mayo).

Idiotic posts at the moment lads, there were always 3-5 hot favourites for sam in any given year. 5 years ago there were slightly different hot favourites, 5 years before that, different again, 5 years before that, guess what? Different again.

Kerry, Dublin, Mayo, Donegal, Tyrone, Cork, all have a decent shot at sam. 6 from 33 teams is about average in any sport - look at the Euros in 2016 in a few months - same - only about 6 - 8 teams have a realistic shot of winning.

Let's think before we talk eh. 

Great to hear Attride is back - if Colm Begley arrives back before end of league, that would be a massive bonus.

Really, you don't see a gap opening between Dublin and everyone else? Tyrone and Cork look a long way from contenders. Only Donegal, Mayo and Kerry have a fighting chance. There is a big difference between having 6-8 teams capable of winning and 2 or 3.

So essentially Heywood beat Kilkenny CBS!

Football in the midlands is in a very sorry state.

Div2
Laois.

Div3
Offaly, Westmeath, Longford & Kildare.

Div4
Carlow.

Can't remember it this poor before.

Probably more accurate to say that football is in a sorry state. Realistically out of 33 championship teams only 2 or 3 have a chance in hell of winning Sam (Dublin, Kerry and maybe Donegal or Mayo).

Cheddar is a legend and we can never repay what he has done for us over the last couple of years. We would surely be a mid division 2 team and maybe even Christy Ring standard if not for him. His work in supporting and building the senior team has been immense as well as his driving the direction for underage hurling in Laois, and in attracting investment from the GAA in general by highlighting the struggles of weaker counties. No doubt at all that we are in his debt. Although we are still getting the odd embarrassing beating, there have also been major highlights such as those mentioned by others.

However, despite his leadership, people still have a right to air their frustrations on how he sets up the team. Defensive set ups simply don't work in hurling. Look at what Waterford and Galway did to us last year. If you have lads that can shoot from distance, then they will be only too delighted to see the opposition sitting back. You simply have to have a go forward mentality in hurling, unlike football. If we are going to drop anyone back it should be into the middle where at least we can try to increase primary possession. Also, playing people out of position like on Sunday and not addressing it when it goes badly wrong are just mistakes in my view and the manager is accountable for them. Doesn't mean he should be 'sacked' or that we are not appreciative of his contributions but the poor tactical decision making is contributing to some of the bad results and needs to be fixed.

The Combined Laois Juvenile team had a huge win over Kilkenny CBS last Friday... 7-10 to 3-5 with Kilkenny getting two goals in injury time.

We need to call a few of them up to the Laois Seniors!!

Its very simple really but Laois always seem to over play the ball, Its like we have to pass it about 5 times before someone has the confidence to take their score.

Although this might generally be true of Laois we didn't have to worry too much about over playing the ball yesterday because we rarely had it! When we did it was ballooned into the full forward line with about 3 or 4 Kerry lads competing against one Laois lad. We completely failed to win primary posession for pretty much the whole game and when we did our forwards never stood a chance.

It was truly awful today. Kerry looked like Kilkenny in comparison. They had some lovely hurlers but had all the space in the world to operate. Most of their scores came from lads with an acre of space.

Darren Maher, Cahir Healy, Neil Foyle and Cha looked like inter county hurlers. Mark Kavanagh did well when he came on. Outside that, we lost every position. We are simply not producing enough hurlers to add strength and depth. Zane, Willie and Roddy will help but all 3 are forwards.

On Cheddar, again he showed that his game planning and line management is questionable. Ben Reddin midfield and Paddy Purcell in the corner? Joe Phelan corner back? Matthew Whelan not particularly mobile at centre back and expected to play midfield? I know he is limited in terms of the panel but surely when we were being cleaned out for every puck out for the entire game he could have pushed more support in there?

Think it will be a miracle if we pick up a single point in this division.

Wonder would Begley be worth a try full back with Timmons and Kehoe in the corners? Would certainly not lack for physicality and all 3 are capable of attacking the ball. Biggest criticism of alot of the lads we try in the corners is that they stand to far off their men or don't back themselves for 50:50 balls.

Some thoughts. Although much of the talk beforehand was about Armagh missing the Cross lads, Laois were probably missing as many influential players - O'Loughlin, Quigley, Begley, Ross, Meaney (most of the game). Given what we saw, there are plenty of players showing that they are good enough for a starting 15 place - Brody, Timmons, Dillon, Strong and Lillis in the backs, O'Carroll, Cahillane, Kingston and Donoher in the forwards. That means that when O'Loughlin and Quigley come back midfield there are essentially 2 forward spots and 2 corner back spots up for grabs, with Begley and Meaney likely to slot in somewhere. Should result in lots of competition for forward places with Paul Kingston, Lowry, Shiels, the Farrells, Campion, O'Reilly and Ross all likely to be pushing. The two toughest positions on the pitch to cover are the corner back ones. I didn't think young Seale looked that assured yet, early days for him. It was funny to hear the commentator on Setanta say repeatedly how superior Laois were in terms of size and pace compared to Armagh - quite a change from a few years ago. Still not convinced we have enough pace on the team but there is no doubt they tried to play with pace on Saturday which is a good sign. Other than the adoption of the blanket defence and quick break out, not sure Lillis knows what the style and shape of the team will be yet. Tough next game against Tyrone, should be another learning experience ahead of what must be viewed as a series of potentially winnable games - Fermanagh, Derry (home), Cavan and Meath(home).

I think it is fair to give the team and manager time before fuller judgement, however I would have thought that a better prepared team for the start of the league should be expected. After our embarrassing collapse against Kildare in the reply and exit at the hands of Antrim in the qualifiers, confidence needs to be built. I still think it is unacceptable that we had no defensive plan and our physical preparation seemed to be well behind for Galway. Not a good indicator of ability to plan and organize. Still, there will be plenty of opportunities for redemption.

Kilkenny CBS probably the lesser of the 2 kilkenny schools but still a huge challenge.

Best of luck to the them, it will be a great achievement to reach the final.

Kilkenny CBS have serious pedigree. 2nd most successful team in colleges hurling after St. Kierans. Leinster champions in 2013 and 2014. A win would be monumental.

Lost 1-31 to 0-17 points in a challenge against Tipp today. Were winning at half time. I would imagine the wind played its part. Anyone hear what sort of team was out?

Jack Nolan said it all in couple of minutes at half time when I suspect he thought the mike was switched off. 'Horrendous, some of the lads he has out there wouldn't even make a minor team' or something close to that. Manager must take a big chunk of the blame for how badly organized the defence was. He can only play the best players available but the setup sounded a million miles off what is required at inter county level.

Haven't we been touted for the drop (mostly by Laois people!) every year for the last 4 or 5 years? Last year was the closest as we were too slow to build fitness early in the year. I predict that we will stay up as we have enough good footballers and should be better than 2015.

That backline you named only has two natural defenders in seale and Timmons , to compete with the top teams we need too find the next cahir Healys but are there any.Begley, strong and the likes are all great footballers but a bit loose and attack-minded  to accommodate them all in the same defence.

Surely modern defences rely on systems now and not on individual tight defending? If we are intending to play man on man, then we might as well forget about it. We should be looking at players who can do a job in a system, not become the next Joe Higgins. Are Donegal, Tyrone and Dublin's defenders all super tight man markers?