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Haha. Fair play Don. Crying laughing here

At home on their Xbox's , PlayStations and phones is where a lot of them are at

I heard Pavel joined the cricket club and Jimmy went boxing

So because  Portlaoise  have huge  resources  does that mean the rest fold their tents up and leave  it to them.?? I mentioned  Port cos they have a big number  in that town too.  Are you or I gonna tell the two arles  to amalgamate? Perhaps Emo Courtwood O Dempseys and Port should all join up to create  a club half the size of Portlaoise  and maybe  they'll  catch them on the hop the odd time.  I suggested  that the bigger  towns and clubs take their youth development  a bit more seriously  and the results will come in time.  I read on laois today last week  that Courtwood  are the second smallest club population wise  in Laois........  Well through hard work at juvenile  and good management  they're  now senior,  they got three or four very talented  young fellas up and look a really good team. Why shouldn't  Port or Graigue  or even Mountmellick be capable of similar.  It's too easy to say that the resources aren't  there

You'll always get the odd purple patch as a small club or county and the best thing is to enjoy it while it lasts

Again, not the point I was making.....

Portlaoise should never be split and nor should it be. They have a hard enough time of it at underage and there's a good reason for that

Ah the poor auld divils. Stop, me heart is bleedin for them. Shocking tough they have it. Shocking. Jaysus you'd wonder how they keep going at all at all.

Not really the point I was making but sure you tend to have your own spin on things anyway

Fair play to your lads Hesh. Lovely to see. Good luck in Leinster and Senior next year. A great achievement in fairness.

I would never advocate a weakening of Portlaoise but it needs two clubs to make sure that all possible players are playing they have a population of 30k or thereabouts but only one club. I would suggest that even with one team at every level jnrC to senior that's only 80 to 90 players being catered for  that's less than .33% of the population ......even 1%of total population playing would make huge strides towards a new club at the northern end of towns. Allow for half males and say half under 40 years there are still huge numbers available. It's not up to Portlaoise to come back to the others but for other large clubs to step up a bit. Stradbally did so why can't Port Joseph's mountmellick step up too. To say we have too many clubs I'd have to disagree with. People who identify strongly with locality will go that extra bit to tog out for a local  first team but may not for an amalgamations second team. Perhaps the competition structures are wrong as I feel we have too many senior team's and not enough intermediate . Maybe 3 levels of 12 teams split in two groups would work for snr to jnr and similar smaller  groups at lower grades. Attach your placing in championship to your league status without exception eg div 1 senior div 2 intermediate and so on. Leagues would mean something and less clubs would give walkovers if relegation meant a drop in status  matches played on a set day  for a set grade every week or fortnight. We'd have a defined season and club players would be improved by playing meaningful matches instead of practice matches all over the place

Shifting deck chairs in my opinion. You can't just "step up" if you don't have the resources. I doubt the clubs you mentioned have "stepped down". They just can't compete with the numbers, and nobody can. You get this stuff every summer from commentators asking for counties like Laois to "step up". It's a load of bollix. How can Laois compete with a county as numerically and financially rich as Dublin? How can clubs in Laois, some of which are playing lads in their 40's, possibly compete with Portlaoise's numbers? Proportionately, numbers will always win as the likelihood of getting good players is greater. Portlaoise should never be split and nor should it be. They have a hard enough time of it at underage and there's a good reason for that

[Portlaoise are only dominant in Laois. Outside of it, their record isn't great.]

I would say this is the best conditioned Portlaoise team ever,  they are a different level to anything else in this County and the levels of commitment are mind blowing.  Malachy has created a culture with them that is simply different level to anything else, as I have said before their football in my opinion is their weakest aspect.  They will destroy O Dempsey's too,  I really think they are working harder than the rest of by a factor of two and it's showing.   It does help you have somewhere between 20-40 lads with the same mentality but the advantage is not raw talent more competition for places.  The fact is that everybody is under pressure for their spot.  The scary thing is if they can keep this mentality up they only need 1 or 2 new bodies every year to keep the system flowing.  I would be disappointed if they don't have a right go at the All Ireland Club.

There are too many clubs in Laois for the size of the population we have. Portlaoise are only dominant in Laois. Outside of it, their record isn't great. Maybe instead of looking to weaken Portlaoise, clubs should concentrate on pooling their obviously thin resources and making themselves stronger. Case in point. Arles. Farcical situation. Joined at underage but flogging the dead horse at Senior. No benefit to Laois and no benefit to themselves.

Joint winning-most club in Leinster football championship history.

It was obvious enough that I meant in recent times. Jesus.

I would say this is the best conditioned Portlaoise team ever,  they are a different level to anything else in this County and the levels of commitment are mind blowing.  Malachy has created a culture with them that is simply different level to anything else, as I have said before their football in my opinion is their weakest aspect.  They will destroy O Dempsey's too,  I really think they are working harder than the rest of by a factor of two and it's showing.   It does help you have somewhere between 20-40 lads with the same mentality but the advantage is not raw talent more competition for places.  The fact is that everybody is under pressure for their spot.  The scary thing is if they can keep this mentality up they only need 1 or 2 new bodies every year to keep the system flowing.  I would be disappointed if they don't have a right go at the All Ireland Club.

There are too many clubs in Laois for the size of the population we have. Portlaoise are only dominant in Laois. Outside of it, their record isn't great. Maybe instead of looking to weaken Portlaoise, clubs should concentrate on pooling their obviously thin resources and making themselves stronger. Case in point. Arles. Farcical situation. Joined at underage but flogging the dead horse at Senior. No benefit to Laois and no benefit to themselves.

Josephs never really fancied it in my opinion. They haven't got many quality players these days, but they succumbed easily. Their backs were left horribly exposed to Portlaoise runners. No more than a training game for Portlaoise and I'm sure they won't be reading too deeply into it.

Trolling? Me? You have over 15,000 posts. This forum is your life

What's your alternative?

No point even discussing it. As a Roscommon native, you should be happy to take whatever Galway and Mayo don't want. Be grateful that you get the odd bite. I reached an all time low sitting in front of Dublin fans clapping our scores and being genuinely surprised that we had "one or two who could play a bit". Best to get us into a lower tier competition and stop cluttering up the place.

Flogging a dead horse. County boundaries are not, and never have been, an appropriate way of sectioning players into teams. The County system is used in England for Cricket, but movement is allowed in and out of the county so that the County can be competitive. Not here. You're stuck with your population and player base and that closed door policy will ensure that the weak can never prosper. Basically, the county system is a complete sham, but ironically enough, the GAA use it as their USP.

I don't think there is any appetite for that. Portlaoise would resist it and I can't see too many committing to that sort of project. There is however no reason why they can't have two or three highly functioning teams. I think it's pitiful with all their resources that they can't win Intermediate. There are reasons for that obviously, and maybe cash flow is one of them. For instance, do they even have a management team in place for the Intermediate team? The impression I always get is that it's a cobbled together outfit made up of whoever is interested or available. Personally I'd want more from them. In my opinion, there is no reason why Portlaoise can't supply a minimum of 30 senior standard footballers. Laois needs as much as it can get from Portlaoise and forget this notion of trying to bring them back to the field

With roughly a third of the population in the county residing there, it is key to Laois (and Portlaoise) that we maximise the town's potential. I don't think that is happening at the moment. There will only ever be 15 places on the Portlaoise senior team, and it looks to me like those outside of the Senior panel take a rather indifferent approach. I must stress again that I am not interested in splitting up the town, but it seems to me like there is a disconnect between the club and the general population. And that's a hard one to work out because on any given day when there's kids' training, there's an ocean of kids in Rathleague. This is a club to be proud of, so the lack of supporters is puzzling.

I get the feeling from the CB that they'd be happy to see Portlaoise come back to the field because that would mean their own clubs could be competitive. I take the opposing view. Whatever potential is in Portlaoise must be harnessed, and the other clubs need to react in a way that allows them to competitive. The CB and Portlaoise need to get into those schools and start creating interest. Portlaoise as a club need to reach out to their community and get them waving the flag in O Moore Park. They'd be a formidable outfit in Leinster if they could really drum up good support. The side effects for Laois in the long run could only be positive surely?