Messages

1

Laois / Re: Laois - Bits & Pieces

« on: January 05, 2021, 04:45:32 PM »

RIP Johnny, would meet him regularly, he'd talk GAA or politics til the cows came home. He didn't have it easy, but always seemed to be in good spirits, condolences to his family.

2

Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2020

« on: October 04, 2020, 06:42:47 PM »

Problem now for Quirke is convincing lads from Port, Graigue, Emo and Ballyfin to come onto county squad. They all have their best chance in recent memory of winning an SFC, not likely to win anything with Laois, so why take the risk of getting injured or not preparing with the club.

3

Laois / Re: Laois senior football memories

« on: March 26, 2020, 08:05:47 PM »

Going on the basis we can pick from any era, and that you can sort of crowbar a few lads into positions they may not necessarily be too comfortable in, here is mine!


Fergal Byron (Courtwood)

Pat Dunne (Ballyroan Abbey)
Darren Rooney (Clonaslee St Manman's)
Joe Higgins (St Joseph's)

Colm Browne (Portlaoise)
Paddy Dunne (Park-Ratheniska)
Denis Lalor (The Heath)

Padraig Clancy (Timahoe)
Tommy Murphy (Graiguecullen)

Mick Lawlor (Emo)
Bill Delaney (Stradbally)
Ross Munnelly (Arles-Kilcruise)

Evan O'Carroll (Crettyard)
Hughie Emerson (Port)
Donie Kingston (Arles-Killeen)

Subs:
John O'Loughlin (Rosenallis)
Derek Conroy (The Rock)
Leo Turley (O'Dempsey's)
Eoin Lowry (Killeshin)
Derek O'Connell (Kilcavan)
Fintan Walsh (Ballylinan)
James Finn (Ballyfin)

4

Laois / Re: Laois senior football memories

« on: March 25, 2020, 02:05:57 PM »

1 - Best memory supporting the footballers: The 2003 final was an obvious high point, but I'll always remember the trips to the minor games in the 90s. I was young enough at the time and loved heading off to the games, a whole load of us packing into the car. It was a day out, they were great memories.

2 - Favourite match: The 96 minor final sticks out, but the atmosphere in 03 tops it because we were all out on the pitch and it seemed like the whole county was at the game!

3 - Favourite player pre 2000, post 2000 (for the older lads): Not really old enough to go too far pre-2000 but Derek Conroy was unreal on the minor team of the mid-90s, loved watching him play. After that, Beano all the way, followed closely by Ross, Higgins, Clancy and Cahir Healy.

4 - Best score/favourite: I always loved Munnelly's goal in the 03 Leinster final. If you watch it back, Beano made it by having the brains to suck in the last defender before playing the pass. He almost played it early before he realised the chance would be lost, so delayed a second, got the last defender to commit to him instead of Ross and then played it off. Something simple but so clever and it made a massive difference to that game.

5 - Best individual display in a match: Graham Brody v Monaghan last year was absolutely incredible.

6 - Match with best atmosphere: Find it hard to recall atmosphere from a lot of games but always liked a big game in Croker the way the noise went around the stadium. 03 Leinster final a case in point.

7 - Most impressive victory: Tyrone in 06, the minor team of 2007 also steamrolled a couple of teams on the way to the Leinster final, they were a fine team. I think they gave Dublin a bit of a trimming that year in a replay, and hammered Offaly as well. The win over Dublin in 03, I remember watching it on the telly because we couldn't go to the game, Woolly gave an interview at half time and said he couldn't see us being beaten, we were all gobsmacked watching it. Turned out he was right! I'd also add the win over Wexford two years ago, the comeback was brilliant and there was a brilliant buzz out on the field after it.

8 - Favourite county ground: Hard to pick, a lot of brutal places out there. Probably Killarney. Aughrim should be demolished.

9- Most disappointing memory (you can rank them): Losing to Westmeath in 04, Losing to that horrible, sh*t factory of a Dublin team in the years after that. Pillar was a pr*ck of the highest order and that team was certainly in his mould! Also, losing to Offaly to get relegated to Division 4.

10 - Worst refereeing decision against us: That Robertson point was a good shout, I'll go with that too!

5

Laois / Re: Laois football team 00-19

« on: December 12, 2019, 09:28:46 PM »

My two cents

1. Brody
2. Healy
3. Timmons
4. Higgins
5. Lillis
6. Tom Kelly
7. McMahon
8. Clancy
9. O'Loughlin
10. Donoher
11. Conway
12. Mick Lawlor
13. Ross
14. Donie K
15. Beano

Arguably the best Laois footballer over this time period was Bruno, but he never really got a decent run with the county, so you can't really pick him here. O'Loughlin's consistency and scoring threat puts him ahead of Quigley and Garvan for me. Donoher often under rated but a great workhorse and always seemed to pop up with a point too. Lillis gets a nod as well as does Healy. i remember him absolutely gluing himself to Bernard Brogan a few years ago, Brogan was in his pomp at the time and almost unplayable, but I think he was taken off that day. Can't remember the exact year, maybe around 2012 or so, I'd have to check. He was some man-marker. O'Leary, Fennelly, Begley, Rooney the close calls for me.

I'd probably pick Beano as my favourite player in this time period, I just loved watching him play, pity the way things went for him with the injury

6

Laois / Re: Video's

« on: October 11, 2019, 04:15:36 PM »

The GAA announced earlier this year that a load of clips from finals were being put up on their website. If you follow this link - https://www.gaa.ie/gaa-now/ - you might find it. If you click on 'archive' on the right hand side of the screen you'll find clips of old finals. Not sure if 2003 is on it, you might need to set a bit of time aside and go scrolling through all the archive to find it.

7

Laois / Re: Laois Senior Hurling Championship 2019

« on: October 07, 2019, 06:07:19 PM »

They do Mossy, you could be nearly guaranteed there will be live commentary on it. Rathdowney-Errill and Borris-Kilcotton met in the 2016 final and it was one of the best games of hurling I've ever seen, here are the highlights from the game, worth a look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2LKf77iCMo

The only down side from your point of view would be that, if The Harps win tonight, the Senior B final probably won't be broadcast.

8

Laois / Re: Football Ref

« on: September 30, 2019, 10:24:13 PM »

I listened to a good podcast over the summer called Against The Rules, it was by the fella who wrote The Blind Side and Moneyball. He did one of the episodes about referees in the NBA. The NBA invested millions upskilling referees, increasing their pay and also setting up a TV referees hub in New Jersey so that the referees in the stadiums could consult with a TV ref within seconds to make sure the correct call was made. All the surveys they conducted before and after have shown the referees have improved and a higher percentage of correct calls are made in every game, but the abuse towards referees has gotten worse and is being committed by more high profile players. His point was that people don't really want the correct call made by the referee, they only want calls made that suit them.

I would say this is heightened in the GAA because of the personal investment and parochialism involved with clubs. One thing that has struck me in recent years is the amount of abuse thrown at referees by teams who have been awarded a free, never mind the team that the free was given against. I'm not here to defend referees, but people can't expect to treat a group of fellas like dirt, fail to meaningfully invest in recruiting decent numbers, and then give out that the standard isn't high enough.

There's a major accountability problem when it comes to discipline in the GAA and I think that's one of the biggest problems with refereeing. Too many people in the GAA think punishments are only for other people and other clubs, and not their own, even when they are blatantly in the wrong. That comes back to the convoluted nature of the disciplinary process, and the only way to fix that is to streamline the whole thing, do away with appeals to the Leinster Council and DRA and all that oul sh*te. One avenue of appeal would be enough. Increase penalties on behaviour you don't want, anything less is tacit approval of that behaviour. Most senior championship games are played in O'Moore Park, the county board could easily set up a camera system in there to make sure there is video evidence from every game played there. It wouldn't take a huge investment to stretch that down to getting lads to video games at intermediate level or senior b in hurling. They could even offset the costs by selling the videos to the clubs to use for their own analysis, as most clubs now seem to video their games anyway.

If we want referees to be better, we need to increase the numbers doing it, attract the right people, retain them, and the put the right sort of pressure on them as well. Not pressure from abuse, but pressure from that fact they have been properly trained and certain standard is expected, and if they're not meeting it then there's lads there to take their place.

Mind you, I don't envisage any of that ever happening.

9

Laois / Re: Football Club

« on: September 23, 2019, 09:03:11 AM »

You're best bet would probably be Park-Ratheniska or Annanough. Both are relatively close to the motorway, Park-Ratheniska are a dual club but their football team play at Junior level. Annanough are intermediate but they're a small rural club who field a Junior C team as well, which is a good place to start out if you haven't played before. They'd be low on numbers and would welcome any new recruit I would imagine. They'd only be about 5 minutes from Junction 15. The Heath are right on the motorway as well, but they're a senior club and their second team is Junior A, so maybe a club that has a Junior C team would be better for you. Courtwood and O'Dempsey's are only about 10 minutes from the motorway as well, but both are senior clubs who also field teams in the lower grades. Hope that helps, fair play to you for taking it up, best of luck.

10

Laois / Re: Laois Senior Football Championship 2019

« on: September 14, 2019, 06:55:21 PM »

Crettyard coming back up will depend on keeping O'Carroll. His body language doesn't hint at a fella who is happy playing there. I wouldn't be surprised to see him transferring up to Dublin over the winter.

11

Laois / Re: Laois Senior Hurling Championship 2019

« on: September 08, 2019, 08:24:46 PM »

Four very poor games over the weekend, the Rathdowney-Errill v Portlaoise and Borris-Kilcotton v Abbeyleix games were complete non-events. The other two were a bit more competitive but not still not particularly good games. Hopefully things improve in the knockout stages.

12

Laois / Re: Leinster Minor Hurling 2019

« on: August 29, 2019, 05:45:24 PM »

From what I've heard, he'll be doing three sessions a week, two during the week and one at the weekend.

13

Laois / Re: Leinster Minor Hurling 2019

« on: August 26, 2019, 05:58:31 PM »

Yeah it would be good to keep Lyons involved, he seems to get teams hurling with a bit of determination and direction so we'd want to be keeping hold of someone like that.

Some people on here seem to have a problem with McGrath coming on board. On the scale of problems we've had in Laois hurling over the last decade or so, I'd be ranking this one fairly low down.

14

Laois / Re: Next Laois football manager

« on: August 22, 2019, 04:38:50 PM »

I would be in favour of keeping Kearns and Cotter on board but I don't think either are ready for it on their own or in a duo. Kearns had to step back and take a lesser role after Year 1 due to the time pressures, so I don't know if he'd even be in a position to assume a more time-consuming role at this stage. I think we need to be aware of what taking over a job as a county manager entails, particularly in terms of time pressures. Derek McGrath was a school teacher with the whole summer off every year, and he still took secondment from the job to spend more time focusing on the Waterford job. Does Davy Fitz even have a job, outside of coaching teams? Limerick are bankrolled by a multimillionaire and Cody is retired with nothing else to do. Dublin have enough coaches and backroom staff to even out the workload on Jim Gavin. Mickey Harte is institutionalised to the whole thing at this stage so keeps it going. Most other counties are in a situation where managers get burnt out after a couple of years.

I read a thing this morning about Tipperary splitting their video analysis between three or four different experts to generate the most accurate feedback for players. The level of preparation is absolutely crazy if you want to try to compete with the best teams now, or at least make progress against the teams above you. It's probably another 30-40 hours a week on top of whatever job you're doing now and whatever family commitments you have as well.

15

Laois / Re: Next Laois football manager

« on: August 03, 2019, 01:09:54 PM »

One thing that struck me over the last couple of years was the amount of awards nights and presentations he was going to, for someone self-employed that's a tough thing to do. Between time spent coaching Laois and time going to these events, it all eats away at time spent on his business. It's not like he can delegate, if he's not there himself he's not making money. Add in the family side of things and it's easy to see why he would feel the need to step away. I think the key now is not to leave him gone long-term like we did with Cheddar, I think he has a genuine interest in the county, hopefully he can be kept involved in some capacity, even if it's helping out with a development squad when things have settled back down for him.