Next Laois football manager

[GAA-SMART]

Think he said he would stay if they changed the player rules over eligibility

[les Antiques]

Which doesn't look like is going to change for 12 months anyway.  Think he'll give it another 12 months regardless . He's doing well with that group and created a great rapport.

I'd be more concerned about the Senior position and the suggestion  of going back to former coaches such as Kearns and  Tom Cribben .

[BallyroanAbu]

For anyone taking the Laois job it's quiet a tricky task, they over achieved last year and possibly are favorites for relegation from Div 2.  This could lead to unrest in what will be a relatively new camp. 

To be honest I am very disappointed Sugrue( I regard him as a Laois based coach)  has left, my genuine belief is that the players should have a meeting and see if there is an appetite to go persuade Sugrue back.  My hope is that there would be,  genuinely I think we were only going to see Sugrue get better.  I think there was plenty of mistakes on his part but the end result was two promotions.  He was relatively new in the job so has a lot of learning to do,  but surely would have kept improving.  But for the good of Laois Football we should try persuade him to have a rethink.  He is the outstanding candidate.

If Sugrue were not to return my choice would be to go with his back room that is a Cotter/Kearns joint management.  They are young and hungry.  They are both Laois men and what the best for the county,  I realize there will be mistakes and all may not go well.  But the promotion of Laois based coaches should be top of the agenda in the County Board.  This merry go ground of  what are largely journey men coming and going has never served us well.  I don't see Kilkenny, Kerry or Dublin going outside of the county.  It is a real bug bear of mine why we have continually promoted those outside of the county above our own. 

[portlaoisekid]

Lads its a complete mess at the minute, rumours abound and our championship is moving along regardless.

We need a manager in place asap. The right manager of course but we need a figurehead in place for the quarter finals especially if its going to be an outsider with no knowledge of our players.

[Tintin84]

Who is Cotter? Where has he come from or what club is he from, Excuse my ignorance but what is his CV like or how did he manage to get involved with Sugrue this year?

[Heshs Umpire]

Who is Cotter? Where has he come from or what club is he from, Excuse my ignorance but what is his CV like or how did he manage to get involved with Sugrue this year?

Sean Cotter of Portlaoise club. Has been with Maynooth University Sigerson teams. Good coach apparently.

[Keyser Söze]

Sugrue cannot come back. It is fantasy land. I'm sure the man thought it out and came to a decision he is happy with. To do a u-turn would be unprecedented and unhelpful (would bring massive pressure, attention and questions after every bad result). It is unfortunate but it is over.

I think it would be madness to thrust Kearns or Cotter or both into it. Keep them involved and learning, yes.

[BallyroanAbu]

Sugrue cannot come back. It is fantasy land. I'm sure the man thought it out and came to a decision he is happy with. To do a u-turn would be unprecedented and unhelpful (would bring massive pressure, attention and questions after every bad result). It is unfortunate but it is over.

I think it would be madness to thrust Kearns or Cotter or both into it. Keep them involved and learning, yes.

It’s madness if Stephen Rochford or Malachy O Rourke we’re available but that’s not what we are facing more like Luke Dempsey or Liam Kearns.  In reality how much more qualified was Sugrue or even Eddie Brennan. 

Need I remind you this county gave TOF a job and no one could be as bad as he was.

[Keyser Söze]

Listen, I was no fan of TOF and I called out Creedon from Day 1. Nobody could consider Luke Dempsey.
I wouldn't put Liam Kearns in that bracket for one minute, that is my opinion.

Neither Cotter or Kearns have any major playing/coaching achievements behind them. To compare them to Eddie Brennan, a multiple all ireland winning hurler and U21 Leinster winning manager is simply ridiculous.

Picture the scene.
1) Things are coming to a head after a few bad results. Your manager starts talking about digging in and turning a corner. Expressing his belief in you. Coming from Brennan or coming from Cotter/Kearns?

2) Incident of indiscipline. A player is challenged and doesn't react well. "f**k you, what would you know about it......"

The above shouldn't be a problem, but realistically it is a problem.

I am not knocking either of them or their coaching ability, I am simply being realistic.

[High Fielder]

I have no interest in this process at all. I don't know what happened with Sugrue, but his silence has thrown a cloud over the county. Even the minor manager explained himself and what about it? Perfectly understandable, thanks for your contribution and best of luck in the future. Simple. No need for rumours or speculation.

I hope our players wanted Sugrue to stay. If they did and stood there sucking their thumbs like the rest of us, I feel sorry for their inability to speak up for themselves. If they didn't want him to stay, they alone would know why and that's ok too. In my opinion, there is no doubt that he improved the team, and any shortcomings we had were because we didn't have enough quality in certain areas.

Sugrue remains the best candidate for the Laois job. I'm not sure who it would take to come in and change my opinion of that.

[High Fielder]

For anyone taking the Laois job it's quiet a tricky task, they over achieved last year and possibly are favorites for relegation from Div 2.  This could lead to unrest in what will be a relatively new camp. 

To be honest I am very disappointed Sugrue( I regard him as a Laois based coach)  has left, my genuine belief is that the players should have a meeting and see if there is an appetite to go persuade Sugrue back.  My hope is that there would be,  genuinely I think we were only going to see Sugrue get better.  I think there was plenty of mistakes on his part but the end result was two promotions.  He was relatively new in the job so has a lot of learning to do,  but surely would have kept improving.  But for the good of Laois Football we should try persuade him to have a rethink.  He is the outstanding candidate.

If Sugrue were not to return my choice would be to go with his back room that is a Cotter/Kearns joint management.  They are young and hungry.  They are both Laois men and what the best for the county,  I realize there will be mistakes and all may not go well.  But the promotion of Laois based coaches should be top of the agenda in the County Board.  This merry go ground of  what are largely journey men coming and going has never served us well.  I don't see Kilkenny, Kerry or Dublin going outside of the county.  It is a real bug bear of mine why we have continually promoted those outside of the county above our own.

No coach in Laois has achieved anything of note. I don't even see a coach improving any side. Teams who improve in Laois tend to do so because a better batch of players came along. I'd like to see a Laois coach too, but they're not there unfortunately. I don't wish to be any more disrespectful than that, but let's stop the nonsense

[The Monument Road]

Im out of the loop these days working away but i do keep in contact. Its disappointing to hear John Sugrue has gone. He had a something very good going on and for now to see it come to a complete halt is more disappointing. Hopefully someone of similar skills and distinction will be appointed. As a matter of interest is there a possibility that a few of "his" panel are not available next year. Im hearing that some players ( first team players) informed him that they are either retiring or taking a break abroad next year and that was the main reason he decided to step down. Maybe its only idle gossip. Only time will tell.

[les Antiques]

Sorry lads I can't see the argument for bringing Kearns back , I really can't . Thats clearly  a step backwards . Some one in the same mould or simliar to Sugrue is what we require .Kearns is neither and has been at the Laois helm before which is another story.

Cotter on the other hand I would definitely keep involved .
 it's pretty common knowledge Donie won't be involved next year also .

[BallyroanAbu]

Wrong Kearns I am talking about Eoin not Liam.

[steven seagal]

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.