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A lot of pressure on him as United desperately need a striker. I get Kane would have cost more in transfer fee and wages but you know your getting a proven PL striker who gets 20+ goals every season which could potentially make United genuine challengers for the title. Hojlund must be really good or has an awesome agent. Made his debut for Copenhagan in Oct 2020, Jan 2022 Stum Graz paid £1.5m for him (he scored 12 goals for them) and in the August 2022  Atalanta paid £15m (he scored 10 goals) and one year later he is going to Man Utd for £72m!!!

I know people saying Levy wouldn't not sell Kane to PL rivals but if he ain't signing contract the ball is most certainly in Kanes court, the same Kane who Levy screwed over when City wanted him. If he goes to Munich he is off his rocker, at least win a title worth something, Munich have won the last 11 Bundesliga titles so he might as well join Celtic if he wants a league medal guaranteed. He also will lose the chance to beat Shearers PL record, he gets 85% of the way to that target and heads of for foreign shores seems odd. If I were him I would stay put and get the big pay day next summer you pick your club as they will all want him, united, Madrid etc and you get revenge on Levy.

Camross GAA Club 1-5 v 6-19 Annanough
The Rock GAA Club 0-9 v 3-5 The Harps
Kilcavan 0-11 v 0-7 Barrowhouse GAA

Some interesting results this week, massive win for Annanough and while they would have been expected to win, the likes of Spink, The Harps or Camross can be a dangerous fixture when hurlers are going well. Kilcavan edged out Barrowhouse and The Harps had a very good win against The Rock. Looks like it will be a very competitive championship.

Would Anthony Cunningham be a shout for senior job given his CV? If he is willing to manage Port he would surely go for Laois job?

It was the best of times... I remember leaving the local at 8am Monday morning... actually, I don't remember 😂

Not just the Leinster final, the entire summer. Thanks to Micko and the players for such good times. Offaly nearly burst the bubble early on but the Dublin game and the row in the tunnel really got the show on the road. 😂 I was in the upper Hogan for the Leinster final, running down that ramp from upper to lower hogan seemed to last forever lol just to get on the pitch and celebrate.

As you say we were right to celebrate it, might not see the likes again. Im not sure the provincial championships will last much longer.

Loserpool shithead Rickie Lambert going full tinfoil hat is not the plot twist I expected. Him and thon dose Matt LeTissier going full QAnon or whatever the f**k the brit version is.

There Brit version is called Brexit.

Saw Portlaoise and Annanough last Tuesday and even though  Portlaoise won by a couple of points Annanough are motoring well and will be a threat . I fancy Barrowhouse though and think they'll take stopping this year .
They are  actually playing each other this Thursday I believe in Vicarstown  . Will be a good indicator .

I watched Kilcavan play Annanough and Barrowhouse in Div 4 semi final and final, very little to separate all 3 sides and each could beat one another on a given day. Annanough do have to play Camross and Spink in their group, 2 sides who can be very tricky to beat given they usually have plenty of players who are training with senior hurlers.

This shit going on for days, yet it took the BBC 2 days before it reported on a former Prime Minister not compiling with a court order...the state of the UK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66165001

Scoil Chríost Rí go around to the local primary schools in June and do a training session with the 6th class girls to see what type of players are coming into them the following September. I think they even take a look at the 5th class kids too, to plan a year ahead. Great commitment in fairness to them, having Critchley involved obviously helps now that he's retired and can give even more time to it, but teaching staff in the school obviously buying in too. I don't think there's any real emphasis put on sport in the CBS, at least from an outsider looking in.

I've a nephew going into Leaving Cert this year in the CBS

1 example from last year

Football training was sporadic and poor before last Christmas

After Christmas someone came up with the genius idea of having the senior and junior teams train together

So you had lads who were playing club senior football playing on the one pitch v some lads a year out of u13

The older lads were terrified of killing the younger lads and the younger lads were wary of getting in the way of the older lads with the result that a lot in both age groups walked away.

And the Hurling Training was an even bigger Joke.

In any county if you want to develop top level players you need 3 legs

Clubs that are coaching lads to the required level

Then the Schools which are a step up again

And then the development squad system

Yep, we need to work with schools, get coaches in there, promote the bloody game for crying out loud. Kids these days have a myriad of distractions and things to do, we cant expect the love of the game to do the job. The GAA should be sending in county players to give talks, good coaches to run training sessions etc. Create an interest and promote the games.

Completely agree about the schools with exception of Knockbeg there seems to be little to no emphasis on schools football in Laois
We need to have the CBS in Portlaoise and Portarlington either competitive in the A or winning B competitions, Heywood should be consistently in the B too
Clonaslee and Mountmellic have probably too small a pick but again this is where a combined Laois schools team for schools outside the A  is needed to give lads an opportunity to play at the highest level

A lot of Laois GAA is currently centred around geography unfortunately

Even with smaller schools, get a good coaching sessions going. It all helps to develop a proper standard then development squads should be able to identify the top players and bring them to an even higher standard. Select ones that have whats required physically to develop into and inter county player. The modern game needs power which can be developed, stamina and speed. Speed for example can be improved a certain amount but most of it is natural, you either have those fast twitch fibres or you don't.

Laois should keep a database of players, keep stats on etc. When players drop off they might find ways of preventing this in the future.

Player development is key but the county board could be smart with their resources, get the coaching in at school level with the aim to make our secondary school teams in particular competitive. Obviously all the kids go to school so you have bigger picks and standard than majority of clubs so coach them there. Those players will improved and go back to their clubs better players making Laois underage championships more competitive, this in turn improves players going into development squads where you cherry pick and prepare top players for inter county level. Its also vital to encourage players to go to 3rd level education where they will meet coaches and players at the level needed to compete at inter county level.

It is no surprise how successful Laois minors were given the strength of our school sides at the time. Ballyfin and Portlaoise CBS had very strong sides back then.

Mount is a good player but he plays essentially in the role occupied by Bruno so hardly one of united's main priorities. They could sign the best midfielders around but imo if they don't sign a top striker I am not sure they get top 4 next season, never mind close the gap on City.

So we are meant to believe Ryan Tubridy quit on one day and the next day an audit starts looking at this? Coincidence or was he aware that this issue was coming down the track. Why the hell are RTE presenters paid so much money? Its mental. Do they think the place will fall apart if they left?

Pat Kenny was the main man in RTE, very good presenter etc but was on crazy money and left to Newstalk. His radio show had the highest listenership but Sean O Rourke took it over and listenership went up. Its a joke. Ironically their main job is to tell the truth and find out the truth is to inform the public. TO be fair the majority of workers at RTE are just like the rest of us and earn far less than the money Tubridy was getting from Renault for a few appearances, let alone his wages.

We need to get the truth on this asap.

Can someone explain this to me please?? How can a company issue bonuses or even dividends if the company is run at a loss?  So its all just a grift, take over a company, load it with debt, pay yourself and shareholders loads of cash and leave it in the shit. How is there no protection against this shit, especially for essential amenities such as water, energy etc.

https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/gaa/1234356/something-has-to-change-urgently-in-laois-gaa.html

Fair play to Conor Ganly in the Leinster Express

We need more of this from our local press

Speaking truth to power is the only way to drive change, well done Conor, hopefully more get involved and get the pressure on county board. As others have said on here there is a need for transparency so people in charge can be held accountable. Plans have been drawn up for change and the Laois public have a right to know what were the recommendations of the plan, how many of those have been implemented and what blockers are hindering their implementation if any. In other words was the plan rubbish or are we just sitting on our hands and hoping things get better.

We have to demand change, our players and people deserve better. Laois may not have an illustrious history in terms of winning trophies but we have produced some outstanding players in both grades down the years. We may not all agree with each other on here but the fact we are here at all shows we only want Laois to succeed.

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.       

Do you think Sheehan is as good a coach as Sugrue?

I don't think Sugrue was some sort of magician, there were not other county boards queuing up for the guy after he finished with Laois. But he did have his sides well prepared and organised when they took to the field. They were far from perfect but you felt he was getting the best out of the players at his disposal. He certainly had better players at his disposal (JOL, Kingston, Dillon etc) as mentioned, but I think if a coach such as Sugrue had this Laois team they would be at least be organised to give a division 3 side a game and not be beaten out the gate after 20 mins. I agree with Billy in one regard, that scoreline actually flattered Laois, it was like watching a junior team play a senior team. If they wanted Down could have really gone to town on us.

Also even if you get the underage structures needed in place to develop our players (and this urgently needs addressing) you still need to have a senior management in place next year. Do we just write it off and give Billy another go? We need to get someone in who will get the best out of the talent that currently exists in the county at senior level, that is the job description for the role.