Leinster U20 Football Championship 2020

[Chrimtain]

I think Sunderland FC play that Prokofiev tune as their team take to the field for all home matches to inspire them. Any chance Carlow might oblige Laois tonight as our boys run onto the pitch?

[The PRO]

No arguments tonight. Completely outclassed. Hard to pick out Laois lads who did well but you could make a case for Dowling, Coffey, Byron (nice free taker) and maybe Saunders in patches.

[on the hop]

Second year in a row steamrolled, no real answer to the pace, power and athleticism they had. Got a good start but once they got into their system and destroyed our kickouts it was going to take something very special to win it.  Turnovers and kickouts were key, very sloppy in possession and kick passing and the insistence of soloing into contact were the main issues. This could have possibly been  because of having no full forward line to be a focal point for ball. Some of the ball in at times was awful. There seemed to be a lack of moment for the kickouts and then bizarrely a decision to keep putting them into the same area where we were often out numbered and losing them. We needed a lot to go right and a lot of our stronger players to perform but they had their homework done on them.

Another tough night as Dublin win their 6th title in the last 7 years

[High Fielder]

This is all becoming really tiresome. Predictable and boring. I have long since been of the view that county boundaries are an inadequate way of dividing players into teams. Land mass does not correlate with population, resources and all that goes with that. Dublin GAA is gigantic compared to our volunteer based effort, and it shows.

Every time I think we have a nice group of players, I come away feeling naive and stupid for even entertaining the idea. That Dublin team were coached, conditioned and prepared to a level that we know nothing about. We throw a Manager at a team and ask them to pull a rabbit out of the hat. It just isn't going to happen. Not in a time when soccer no longer commands the numbers it used to in Dublin, or rugby either. Even the trendies are rocking up at GAA clubs, so much so that there are problems accommodating their people carrying tanks in the car parks. You can have all the room you want in our GAA grounds.

[SCFC]

We got an awful hiding on our own kickouts. I honestly don't think you can blame anyone solely. Once Dublin pressed, we just couldn't get any possessions off our own restarts. You can't blame the keeper - he tried a number of various kicks. The two midfielders were as honest as they come but not as strong as their markers. The backs moved around as much as they could to offer options. Management made switches.
Sometimes you're just beaten ends up by a better bunch of players.

[High Fielder]

I think it goes a lot deeper than tactics. It's years of coaching and conditioning. And numbers too. My personal opinion is that we need to get the right people in early, rather than anyone who'll take the job too late. Even our senior players looked weak in the tackle last night, and surely that's a bad sign. And remember, that was pretty much a different Dublin team grom the one that beat us 12 months ago.

I thought Dublin were in a low gear in the second half. Foot to the floor, the could have put us out the gate. The  gap is widening all the time

[Laoiseabu]

14 of the starting 15 for Dublin last night are underage again next year while only 2 of our starters are underage next year . Just think about that and let it sink in . Crazy

[High Fielder]

It's a scary prospect alright Laoiseabu. And the only benefit I can see is that we have the makings of a decent team. However, they probably need two to three years of decent coaching to develop them, whereas the Dublin lads are already a long way down that path.

The tale of the two midfielders from last year is a cautionary one. They appear on the face of it to have all the attributes necessary to be useful additions to the senior panel. But they're not ready; nowhere near it in fact. That reflects badly on our underage coaching and development. We are consistently looking weak and under prepared at all levels, and then trying to do too much too quickly at Senior. We could probably to with a Bryan Cullen type figure guiding us, but there's no chance we'd be able to afford or prepared to spend that type of money. It's fairly obvious that we're struggling

[Zooming around]

It's a scary prospect alright Laoiseabu. And the only benefit I can see is that we have the makings of a decent team. However, they probably need two to three years of decent coaching to develop them, whereas the Dublin lads are already a long way down that path.

The tale of the two midfielders from last year is a cautionary one. They appear on the face of it to have all the attributes necessary to be useful additions to the senior panel. But they're not ready; nowhere near it in fact. That reflects badly on our underage coaching and development. We are consistently looking weak and under prepared at all levels, and then trying to do too much too quickly at Senior. We could probably to with a Bryan Cullen type figure guiding us, but there's no chance we'd be able to afford or prepared to spend that type of money. It's fairly obvious that we're struggling

Not so sure I agree with this. We had 5 or 6 GPOs not so long ago. What have we now? 2 or 3?? Surely the wages saved could be invested in a person like Cullen.

[High Fielder]

But we need the GPOs as well, and not just two or three. I would be very interested to know how many people work full time either directly or indirectly for Dublin GAA. We might never know that because of inventive accounting and the sheer volume of investment that is available to them. That's not their fault by the way, and good luck to them. Unfortunately, the bar is so high now that we can only dream of even making the jump.

I'm afraid all things considered we are small fry. Minnows. We need to up our game on so many levels. Our books only balance because other counties pack OMP in the summer. Our own crowd don't support us any more. Laois CLG consists of a handful of employees and is like Fleetwood trying to compete with Manchester City. And our underage players are being sent in to battle with their fists, and everyone else has a gun. A waste of time.

[Keyser Söze]

It’s not a waste of time.
I’ve said it before on this forum, we are effectively battling to be the best of the rest at underage in Leinster. Do that regularly & every now and again we will get breaks, and most importantly continue feeding our senior team.
It takes a level of investment, coaching and organization to be the best of the rest in Leinster, and I’m talking generally rather than specifically about this team.

Assuming not every poster here is from Portlaoise, we all know what it’s like to be under the cosh at both juvenile and adult level for periods of time at club level too.

To declare the whole thing a ”waste of time” as the previous poster did is juvenile.

[High Fielder]

Nobody who sets out to compete in anything wants to be best of the rest. That's not enough to keep the wheels turning. And it sticks out like a sore thumb. We lack investment, comparatively speaking. We lack supporters. And we're lacking players too. I think plenty before me have decided it's a waste of time

[Keyser Söze]

I agree that we shouldn’t set out to be best of the rest, but clubs and counties all over Ireland set targets year after year that don’t involve winning their championship. It’s reality.

I wonder why you’d bother posting, or following, considering it’s a waste of time!

[High Fielder]

Because I love Laois, pure and simple, and I'll be good to go again for Mullingar. But people in general are staying away. And in some cases, so are players. And I'm starting to get it. In an overall context, we and many others are going nowhere. The GAA climate has changed dramatically and it's hard to know what we're working towards.

[clonadmad]

It's a scary prospect alright Laoiseabu. And the only benefit I can see is that we have the makings of a decent team. However, they probably need two to three years of decent coaching to develop them, whereas the Dublin lads are already a long way down that path.

The tale of the two midfielders from last year is a cautionary one. They appear on the face of it to have all the attributes necessary to be useful additions to the senior panel. But they're not ready; nowhere near it in fact. That reflects badly on our underage coaching and development. We are consistently looking weak and under prepared at all levels, and then trying to do too much too quickly at Senior. We could probably to with a Bryan Cullen type figure guiding us, but there's no chance we'd be able to afford or prepared to spend that type of money. It's fairly obvious that we're struggling

Not so sure I agree with this. We had 5 or 6 GPOs not so long ago. What have we now? 2 or 3?? Surely the wages saved could be invested in a person like Cullen.

We never at any point had 5 or 6 GDA’s in situ at the one time

There’s a budget in place for 5 positions but they have never been filled,there’s been a struggle to attract suitable people.