Messages

The Laois GAA site has two Div 2 semi final relegation playoffs which would indicate a final but I was of the understanding that the two teams go down. Is that the case?

To think this picture was taken 2 weeks ago, life can be desperately cruel at times. Difficult to get your head around things when you hear news like this. Heartbreaking.

Maloney is great but so is Canning, I was not a fan and his mistakes (getting names wrong) were irritating but when I look back on old games or clips I have to say he is a top commentator. I do recall one mistake where Beano McDonald broke his leg against Tyrone and Canning was suggesting it may be his knee while Rte were shwing replays of the leg obviously broken.

I also think a good co-commentator is important, for instance Michael Duignan in hurling really adds to it as he spots things going on the commentator is not aware of.

As for the Sunday Game panels nowadays....horrendous

Tyrone are waiting in the long grass for sure, and Tyrone seem to be the one county that know how to rattle Kerry in recent history, but you have to feel if Kerry reproduce that Armagh display they will have too much for them.
They even gifted Armagh a goal (the corner back ran away from the ball on the short kickout for Armaghs goal, very odd, something you would not see at u-14 level). Again I get people might say Armagh were not at their best but to score 14 points in a row (only 2 of which were 2 pointers) against the reigning champions at QF stage takes some doing.

Prediction: Kerry 3-21 2-18 Tyrone

I get its odd for people to write off Meath given who they have beaten, but we can only go on our own opinion from what we have seen so far. For me I think Donegal will have a bit to spare over Meath and I expect them to win by 5+ points or so. But this is why we love sport as anything can happen, for example while Galway may not have been at their best they were still beaten fair and square at Croke Park, Meath fully deserved the victory and will no doubt improve even further as a result. They will go in again as underdogs and each time that has happened this season (I assume Meath were favs for Leinster final) they have upset the odds.

However, the way Galway tore them open with direct running when they got those two goals in quick succession would worry me from a Meath perspective, you could see Donegal making hay as that is their bread and butter. Easy to say on here, luckily football is played on grass so will see what happens.

Prediction: Donegal 2-17  1-13 Meath

That's a strong setup for u-14 football. Good to see it

The winners should certainly get a go. They should also have a fortnight to prepare.

I think its a great carrot for the winners, I know they were well beaten the last day but Im sure the Kildare players would have watched Dublin beating one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) hurling teams of all time and thought to themselves something that seemed a universe away (being a top tier team) could be achievable albeit with a lot of work still to do to bridge the gap. They will certainly return to training for next year with a boost in their step.

In fact I think this sort of format should me brought into football also. All teams should be seeded for the championship based on league position and last years championship. Then run off the provincials and the 2nd tier cups (all knockout games) and then have All Ireland series after that.

Lots of negative talk online about allowing Joe McDonagh finalists into AI series after Kildare were heavily beaten by a hungry Dublin side 6 days after the Joe McD final.

Given that Dublin put Limerick to the sword today it shines a better light on Kildare. I think the winners certainly deserve a crack at a preliminary quarter final.

IS this league completed no or what way does promotion and relegation work? I assume top 4 go into semi finals. Is there a relegation playoff also?

Leagues are different to the group stage of last couple years in Division 1-3 there are semi finals and relegation semi finals (which are basically relegation playoffs)

1st plays 4th and 2nd plays 3rd. In the relegation side 5th plays 8th and 6th plays 7th.

Thanks Karate Kid

IS this league completed no or what way does promotion and relegation work? I assume top 4 go into semi finals. Is there a relegation playoff also?

Yes I completely agree. Theres no point in looking backwards. There was a narrative emerging from the comments that we should be more like the 2019 /2020 set up.
I was merely pointing out that we had the same head coach this year as 2019.
And by the way Eddie and the group had a pretty awful 2020 which often gets lost in the blue tinted glasses.
There should be a review and I hope there is. I also hope the entire group gets a chance to put things right themselves. That includes Rowland, O'Connell who stepped away during the year. Maybe another player or two will choose to commit next year and that the championship unearths one or two as well. Here's hoping for an improved Laois in 2026.

Surely any review would focus on any success we achieve, winning Joe McD would have to be in that. Im sure it was not perfect but that set up had us on the road to improvement. Laois might not have won many games in 2020, but they avoided relegation in the league (just) and although well beaten by Dublin in Leinster they were only knocked out of the AI by Clare by one point.

I have no gripe against Tommy Fitzgerald, like everyone else on here I just want Laois to be successful regardless of who is in charge. I have not seen Laois train and can only comment on games i have seen. In my opinion based on what i have seen, Laois looked a poorly prepared side in terms of having a game plan/implementing the plan correctly, and a plan B when Plan A was not working.

What I saw from Laois in 2019 is worlds apart from what I saw this year, granted players are older with some coming to the end of their careers and the camp might not have been as united this year. Its also a fair point by Laois Rising that Eddie Brennan was the figurehead  that united the players to get everyone pulling in the one direction (Micko had this same effect in football).

All teams are judged on their results at the end of the day and whatever the cause (both management and players share the blame here) those result were not good enough. We played 13 games this year between league and championship winning 4 (Westmeath twice, Kerry & Down) drew once and lost 8.

All I would say is for people to look back at the Carlow game in the Joe McDonagh cup. This game to me illustrates our failings this year. It was our 11th competitive game from that list so lots of work done at training leading up to this game, we had been beaten by Kildare so we knew the importance of the game and we knew Carlow after been beaten by them in the league to effectively relegate us. So we had no real excuses going into this game in terms of time for management team and squad to be ready for it.

If you watch that game you would have to be critical of Laois, they seemed all over the place for a lot of that game and were poor in execution of the basic skills of the game along with aimless game play. So many handling errors, players picking wrong passes or not supporting each other at times. There were at least two side line cuts that went astray and one in particular in the 2nd half we fouled and gave Carlow a great lift. An we nicked a draw in the end with a goal at the death.

It simply looked to me that Laois were 2nd best in all aspects of the game in that match, and again looked poorly prepared in most aspects of gameplay. Something you might expect of a team that playing in its first few games but not its 11th and most important. As you rightly say Laois have some talented hurlers coming through in the next few years so it is vital we have a good set up in place, if Tommy is to be the man to do this he has to take serious stock of what went wrong this year.

The players are the ones who take to the field at the end of the day, of course we all know that and when things are going bad you will get levels at training declining, players opting off the panel and the like when the people in charge have lost control.

But really the buck stops at the managers door, it is an incredibly difficult task being an inter-county manager and its vital you get in a top coaching team with you. You have to have a game plan that the players buy into and suits their attributes as your job ultimately is to get the best out of the players. You also need a plan B and C drilled into players of what to do in certain situations, so if you take a quick puck out to the corner back and the opposition forwards push up if that player continually tries to burst out through the press it would indicate this was not worked on properly in training. How many times did that very thing happen this season?
Even basic things like sideline balls, it often looked like there was not plan or understanding amongst the players, on a well coached side every player knows what they are doing. Limerick most certainly have a panel of top class hurlers but put them under a poor coaching set up and even they would struggle.

I remember reading Ger Loughnane's biography "Raising the banner" and there is a bit near the end about his plan to have Sean Stack replace him. Stack was a well respected coach at the time at club level so Loughnane brought him in as part of the coaching team and let him take a few sessions at the start of the year, after a few months numbers at sessions were down as Stacks training methods were not up to the standard the players were used to and could see they were wasting their time. Loughnane took the reins again and eventually got rid of Stack.

Tommy Fitzgerald is clearly a passionate Laois and GAA mean, fair play to him for taking on the role and he was not helped by coming in after Darren Gleeson stepped down. But you have to say Laois have clearly regressed this year under his management, no question about it. They beat Westmeath, Down and Kerry this year along with a last puck goal to get the win over Carlow. They were beating by Antrim, Kildare (twice) and Carlow. Relegated from the league and failed to win the Joe McDonagh cup which was a lower standard from last year.

Unlike the footballers Laois seem to have some very good hurlers at u-20 and minor so its up to the county board to ensure we have a top coaching team and senior level to get the very best out of our players as they come through to senior level. They should also have a plan to develop coaches within Laois to learn from the very best.

100% agree, if Kildare can come from essentially no where to produce a hurling side to compete in the Leinster championship then we have no excuse.

Ottoman, I sadly have to agree with everything that you, Joey and blueforever stated. I will say one thing, I actually don't think that Tipp will bother to go full throttle against us, as they basically know that all they have to do is turn up, play at 60%, without 4 or five of their top players as the last thing that they want is injuries ( I'm hoping). Secondly your stop on, AS A county, for whatever genetic reason, we are small, against kildare it was like Pigamies playing 🇳🇱 Holland. Yet with small men our footballers in 03.04,05 and 06 done well. Other than Garvan Rooney and one or two others, we were small aswell. Limerick have a lot of big men, but in the early two thousands they got Anthony Daly, Crendon and many others and started with u10s all the way up, every single weekend
 From the County chairman to the groundsmen they pulled together, persistent and worked savagely on the technical side with the young lads, and from minor up, they had every age group in The university doing savage gym work, they are monsters with exceptional skill levels. Sadly, other than Collier, Critchley and Cheddar. Most of our boys are Club first. I wish that I was wrong, I really do, but I don't believe that ALL OF OUR BOYS, SOME YES, ALL NO, would be prepared to give up going out in Portlaoise most Saturdays to work out in Rowlands gym.

But nobody answered my opinion about dropping two 6 foot plus lad's in Cuddy and Mullaney for two lads about 5.9 and light. And our manager was talking before the match about trying to match kildare.

I think Tipp will start strong and ease off for 2nd half and empty the bench.

I think it's harsh to criticise the players by saying they should give up a Saturday night for the gym. Given the condition they are in id imagine they sacrifice an awful lot of their time on either GAA fields or gyms, that cannot be easy. They are amateur players and they deserve some breaks and they deserve our respect for the work they put in for the jersey. They are the ones who will have to face a hungry Tipp team today and we all know the outcome, so do they yet they will be there representing us all. Respect