Leinster Senior Football Championship 2016

[Dave like the tv channel]

Great post Tony. Laois Gaa is a mess. The malaise within the county is shocking.
I don't know what the answer is but I'd start with the county board.

Start and nearly finish. The CB need to step down (practically, en masse, barring an exception or two). Their handling of the SFC 2014 was a farce and they shouldn't be still there. The whole GAA scene in Laois needs to be reorganised from top to bottom, revitalising the club scene first and foremost, by making our SFC bloody competitive.

It's a big worry.

[Junior Ex Laoistalk]

  It's a long time since I saw a Laois team this unfit . From the highlights of the Offaly game on Sunday they look on a different level to us in the fitness department especially . They had a play .. a pattern of play that worked for them . I saw none of this in Portlaoise Saturday night. If Wicklow had possessed a half decent free taker the end result would have been different.

Saying that I do think think the current Laois crop have talent and do show a lot of heart . However I doubt that will go very far in Nowlan Park judging by the current set up . I really wish im wrong just like when we beat them in '86 and '03 .

Everyone is talking about defensive plans and patterns of play and the like, but can someone tell me for example what pattern of play Offaly had that we don't have... What defensive plan do some other teams have that we don't have.
I honestly don't see much difference in the way we play and the way other teams play regarding structures, it's just that some other teams have stronger, fitter and better players than us.
Fitness is our biggest problem at the moment and Dublin will exploit that to the max. They will bring on lads late in the game who would make any team in the country and we will have run out of steam by then due to our lack of fitness.
The only defensive plan that we can employ against a team like Dublin is to stick thirteen men behind the ball and attack on the break. But for that to work it requires a super fit team with super fit subs and that's where we will fail.

And that IS the fault of the management team.......

[Giovanni]

I would agree Junior that all the talk about systems is a bit overegged.

On the other hand, when you look at Tyrone who really don't have players that are superior to ours, you can see what a well-prepared team looks like. Every player knows what his job is, the team defends and attacks as a unit and overall they are more than the sum of our individual parts.

There has been a lot of talk about fitness on here. I know what some players have been injured and may not have got the benefit of proper preparations (Evan O Carroll, Mark Timmons, etc.) but I didn't see any great evidence of lack of fitness on Saturday. I was actually surprised at how big a shift JOL put in (despite a few hefty wallops) - he didn't look that fit earlier in the league.

[Joeythelips]

"You'd be terrified. If we defend like that, Dublin will be gone out the gate after 15/20 minutes and they won't even look behind them. Dublin would destroy us on that performance. We can just hope we won't be as poor but stopping Dublin is a mammoth task. I don't know is there anyone capable of doing it, never mind us.

As somebody said to me after the game 'the pick of the four teams wouldn't beat Dublin', and they're probably right. I don't know what we have to bring to it, maybe a few snipers in the stand, I'm not too sure"
Laois Manager Mick Lillis - after wicklow game

For a manager to say things like this make his position untenable in my book. We all know the Dublin squad is the best around at the minute, but they are not unbeatable by any stretch.

Look what Jim McGuinness and Donegal did to this Dublin side just 2 years ago. An organised, focussed and well drilled football team with a game plan beat them by 6 points in a All Ireland final, was that Donegal team full of players who will make peoples list of all time greats....no, it was not. But they were really focussed and had huge belief in themselves which they got via hard work over the previous years under the management.

Imagine being a Laois player right now who has trained hard during the winter months probably with this game in mind, and basically his manger thinks he should not have bothered and has wasted his time. Shocking.

The attitude of Lillis is the attitude that has held Laois back as a county over the years, we literally have no belief in ourselves. If he has any shame he should admit he is out of his depth and step aside, Cunningham should be offered the role straightaway. Cunningham was in charge of a Galway hurling side, again who are no world beaters but who took on once of the greatest hurling teams of all time. I doubt very much he would have said things like "I don't know is there anyone capable of doing it, never mind us. "

[Dave like the tv channel]

I think Lillis is playing possum here. There's no manager who'd admit that crap to anyone outside of their circle of closest friends. He's playing games.

[Joeythelips]

I think Lillis is playing possum here. There's no manager who'd admit that crap to anyone outside of their circle of closest friends. He's playing games.

I am not sure a manager of a team who were relegated to division 3 and have just scrapped past a division 4 side needs to play possum, do you?

[Andy06]

I picked up on his comments aswell basically saying that there is no chance. One thing he also needs is a course in dealing with the media, everything he comes out with generally seems to be woeful.
In particular the comments about not having a clue how they lost games earlier in the league. Even if he is completely at a loss, there is no way he should be coming out and stating as much to the press. He is undermining both himself and the players.

[Giovanni]

Fully agree with JoeytheLips on this. I just cannot understand some of the stuff that's been coming out of the camp (from both management and players) for a good part of this year.

The decision to play the game in Nowlan Park may, indeed, be "disgraceful" but there should be enough commentators around to make that point without the players or managers having to worry about it. If you're playing the Dubs, you play them anywhere, under any conditions. If you're focused and confident, the venue is a complete irrelevancy. Same is true for statements about Dublin beating the best of the 4 teams on show. That's not only disrespectful to the 80+ inter-county players (including our own) that are putting in a lot of hard work, but it's also just not true (assuming we were properly prepared). We got within a score of them just a few years back (arguably with a weaker team).

It's comments like this that leaves me, as a supporter, with little to hold on to going down to Nowlan Park. It can't be doing much for the players either.  I don't like criticising management without seeing exactly what they're doing in training etc. but these kinds of statements are just really not helpful.

[Tony]

Heard those comments as well on Radio 3. I think I've criticised Lillis enough so didn't want to bring it up. But it is awful, for a manager to say that, that he thinks we have no chance. As posters have suggested, if we had good preparation, sure we'd be underdogs but NOT no-hopers against Dublin. What's disgraceful is his incompetency this year. His attitude has been woeful as a county manager. I found his comments about how hard it is in Div 2 and how equally hard it will be in Div 3 to not inspire confidence at all. This group of players deserve way more. I just hope they stay around next year and will get a lot more.

As stated before, I do believe this year is already a write off as we obviously haven't prepared well, and the manager doesn't seem motivated, confident, let alone competent. After we lose after 1 or 2 qualifiers, give this man the boot he deserves (even though he is a nice man; it's not personal, but should be nowhere near an IC job) and get somebody with competency in there. This squad of players deserves a man with belief and a man that can make them progress. What they have at the moment is a man with no belief in them and a man who is bringing them back years. It'd drive anyone up the wall. This squad HAS talent and HAS potential - can we not just get a man in there who knows that and can harness that potential. It's not that much to ask surely. All we've got since Micko, has been average journeyman after average journeyman. The players and fans deserve better.

[redsetanta]

Lets be honest here lads, managing the Laois senior team isn't exactly a plum job. If anything it's a team in decline as there's plenty of mileage on the clock of some of our better players. The 2007 under 21's won't be around for much longer.  On top of that we have some tempermental players who don't always react in the most positive manner to authority. I cannot see us attracting a manager that's anywhere close to the profile Micko had when he came in. There isn't that potential there.
In saying that what we have at the moment could be a lot better.

[Tony]

You're missing the point. Yeah of course we can't attract anyone with the PROFILE of Micko. But we can surely attract someone with a good football brain with a desire to make this team as good as it can be.

[Joeythelips]

Everything you said could be applied to the Donegal team the year before Jim McGuinness took charge redsetanta. I'm not saying this Laois team will win things but would be nice to see a setup getting the best out of them. As for attracting someone, Cunningham has a decent profile given what he did with Galway hurlers. And we have him picking up bibs probably

[redsetanta]

The difference with Donegal was Jim McGuinness. Lillis got the job after an extensive interview process. To be honest he had a good cv with plenty of club success. Maybe money was a big factorbut he had a decent track record. Intercounty seems to be too big a step for him. As good as McGuinnesswas nobody would have predicted what he managed. We have some very good players but not on the same level as their Donegal counterparts. You have to get the fit right and timing has a part to play. I thought Jason Ryan would do something with Kildare but it didn't happen.

[les Antiques]

I always thought that Jason Ryan would have been a great appointment for Laois .

[Tony]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Jason Ryan, but his stay at Kildare was not so good. He did a great job in Wexford and had them very competitive. He seems off the radar now, though. Kildare was his big break and unfortunately for him, it just didn't work out.