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Something is going very wrong at underage level with the development of players. With our bigger clubs they can go from having a decent team one year to a weak team the next-tends to be down to the quality of parents involved with certain teams that decides their development. Schools are hugely disappointing-outside of Knockbeg who are competitive at senior level without ever really looking like winning the competition. In other counties we see schools playing a big role in helping the progression of young players. 

The minor panel for this year is a perfect example of something amiss in the county. Crettyard have five players on the minor panel this year with probably 15-20 boys maximum in the parish of that age to draw upon and then you have a town of 20,000 plus in Portlaoise and they feeding in 2 players. Traditional strongholds like Stradbally-no players, St. Joseph's 1. What is happening in these clubs with the size of pick available to them that they are not developing and bringing through players on an annual basis.

Laois will only be strong when the likes of Josephs, Stradbally and Portlaoise are strong. Traditionally when Laois go well its when are stronger, traditional clubs are going strong too.

I'd like to know what the PERCEPTION is of the 'size of pick' available to St Josephs. I honestly can't put it in numbers so can anyone throw a bit of light on it from a Census or whatever. I do know theres only 5 housing estates in the ENTIRE parish, which is a very large area, and 4 of those estates are up in The Swan. Theres 100 houses in total between those 4 estates, and it's a 25 mile round trip to Kellyville from there. Which makes me laugh at suggestions that Portlaoise moving 2 miles out to Rathleague may be an issue. There are approximately 15 kids in wolfhill school, maybe 35 kids in The Swan school. I'd imagine Luggacurren school is relatively modest too, and I believe numbers are dropping in Ballyadams.. and that's your 4 main areas in a very large parish by area. Yes, bigger numbers than a Crettyard or Barrowhouse or whoever, but don't confuse area with population. I'll take a guess here.. are there 400 to 500 houses in the parish?... I don't know. But one, I can't think of another club who's biggest population centre is a 25 mile round trip from their pitch, and two, a parish that's so big but has such small schools. All those factors have existed since day one, but every club can see new challenges post-Covid especially. 'NEW' parents aren't as inclined to drive 4 nights a week, or even 6 nights a week and bypass maybe 5 other clubs just to get to their parish club. I'd love to hear opinions, but not abuse. Thanks.

It's great to see the satisfaction you are taking in Laois being beaten.

Total deflection on your behalf. Tell me where the 17pt swing was going to come from.

You are both talking shite.
Everybody forecast a tough battle. Everyone was worried.
A few added on things like "Laois by 6" after talking about how tough it was going to be.
To say people were being dismissive or showing little respect to Kildare on this forum is bullshit.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it, and eloquently put by you too... but for the people who were saying Laois by 6.. where did they feel the 17pt swing was going to come from? 17pts.

I don't agree that there was very little respect shown to Kildare on this forum before the game.
Practically every poster was worried about the game.

Laois win by 5, Laois win by 6, teach this crowd a lesson etc. Lads doing serious damage in big wide Croke Park..

I saw that initial post when it went up and couldn't believe my eyes. Anyone that was in Carlow a fortnight ago would have known we'd be in dire trouble yesterday. And the bookies making us 4/6 on favs was farcical!!... Against a team that beat us by 11pts a little over a month ago. There was very little respect shown to Kildare in advance of this game, neither here nor main stream media. I feel for the Laois lads but well done to Kildare, they were fit, organised and ready for a national final . We weren't.

Poor stuff on Sunday, make no mistake about that. I know a win is a win but that was a hard watch for most of the game. On the positive side the 6 backs, and keeper obviously, look to be well settled and set up for the year. BD and MT were solid throughout. Our midfield had a quiet day but that's on the back of 3 really good performances previously, so no big problems there. Honestly thought two of the 6 forwards, who shall remain nameless, could have gone at half time though.. their contribution was minimal. Evan was good again and you could feel the energy leaving the team when he got the black card, the flip side of that I suppose is everyone got a big lift when he came back in, coupled with a few good subs at the same time. A worry is that we looked lethargic again in the first half, very similar to that bad 20 min spell vs Carlow. That needs sorting as we hopefully near a league final. Final point, this craic with Killian Roches crusades is exciting, and profitable. He's causing a real conundrum for opposing keepers on their kick-outs, and long may it continue. It actually makes sense what he's doing and we got massive joy from it particularly against Carlow and Longford in the 2nd halves, BUT...I'd like to see him stay put when we're a point up with 2mins left!! Tipp went for broke and had 3 vs 2 in our half and our keeper was STILL up contesting a kick-out. In general though, we're benefiting big time from this, and even if/when it goes wrong once we should persist with it. IT WORKS! Overall, great to stay winning, plenty to work on, and still looking like twice the team and setup of the last few years.

Looking forward to Tipp next Sunday. We are where we are as regards Division 4 football and there's no point in lamenting the quality of opposition. It's not too long ago that Carlow gave us a bit to think about in a Leinster semifinal in Croke Park.  I'd give the lads a lot of credit for sticking to the plan when we went 5-0 down, and to be very fair, it looks like there's a bit of a plan and structure in place. Yet again Shaun Fitz was excellent, he's getting on a tonne of ball in games and always looks like he can make something positive happen. We look pretty fit and mobile and there's a lot of honest hard graft being put in on all lines. And for the first time in many years there's a bit of size about the team. Damon Larkin was influential again, Kevin Swayne was a ball of energy and workrate, and I thin in Ben Dempsey we have a really good prospect. He's very mobile, always trying to get forward, and a solid defender. Getting Rioghan Murphy back will also improve the team. In all, there's nothing to be critical of, and plenty to be positive about. We have a young, fit and hungry team who look fully bought in. Looking forward to Thurles!

no gud Will COme of this

Correct.

Have to give credit where it's due and say that was a very solid performance last night. We were easily 7/8 points a better team. Their goal at the end was sloppy/fortunate and we could have had a couple more goals (James Kellys chance and the disallowed goal from Seamus Lacey being two). Obviously Killian Roche is going to get a lot of the plaudits following on from kicking 5pts but Damon Larkin had a massive game in midfield. He's powerful and more mobile than I'd previously thought. Shaun Fitz went thru a tonne of ball and used it well too. The thing that pleased the most was our willingness to be direct when facing a massed Longford defence (how do teams still put 15 behind the ball when losing by 7pts!!!???). We didn't do the whole forward and backward bullshit around midfield and there was great effort put into supporting the man on the ball. Really pleased with what I saw.. definite green shoots.

Just to bring it back on topic, I think we'd be lost without Laois Today, such is the poor fare on offer from all other outlets. Laois Today cover a hell of a lot of games, make a good fist of the Ladies football and Camogie, and I never found them too far wrong with accuracy of results or match reports. Their podcasts were decent, and good craic, in the build up to finals this year and all in all I don't think you'd get better for a relatively small sum of €7 a month.

The negativity regarding the Laois Senior Football team on this board saddens me. Yes, we are down in Division 4, hammered by Dublin in Leinster SFC and by Down in the Tailteann Cup. We have had one poster here asking should we consider withdrawing from championship and league !

Ciaran Fitzgerald famously said to his Ireland rugby teammates  "where's your f*****g pride ?" and the same applies here. The Laois Senior football team are the flagship football team in the county. Down the years young lads would dream of emulating Curly Prendergast, Barney Maher, Joe Higgins and many more. Do we really want to consider going down the same road as Kilkenny ?

Of course our pool of talent seems very shallow at present and we've had no success at underage since 2007. The structure of club football in Laois has it's shortcomings that doesn't help either. On the other hand the split season and the increased number of games gives inter-county players the opportunities to develop that were lacking previously. Many will also have the experience of playing in high-quality 3rd level competitions. We all know too that a team can be better than the sum of it's parts – no county demonstrated this better than Offaly under the late Eugene McGee.

Laois supporters have a role to play too. If you are totally demoralised then it might be better to just walk away rather than contributing to the negative background noise. Of course lads will be hesitant to commit where there is such a mood of doom and gloom surrounding the Laois Senior Football team. Now is the time that the players and new manager need our support most. Remember Offaly supporters Croke Park sit down protest in 1998 and Kildare's Newbridge or Nowhere protest in 2018. We as Laois supporters should have taken the same stance and refused to play the Dubs in Nowlan Park Kilkenny back in 2016.

Laois Abú!

It's not my intention to offend you but this is just pure virtue signalling. Let's all get behind the team and be good little supporters and everything will be grand. For a proud dual county we're now an embarrassment on the football side. Players not committing, being outnumbered in support at every home game for the last 5 years, that debacle vs Down on national tv and so on. I've been to probably 90% of Laois matches in the last 50 years but enough is enough. I'll stand by my previous post... channel everything and anything we have into starting from scratch with underage, see where we could get to in 5/7 years. Take the emotion or whatever out of this and answer this question for me..,what county would you hand on heart say we'd definitely beat in next years Leinster championship? But maybe you're right.. the 250 of us that go to games should sit on the middle of the pitch in OMP next time we're losing and everything will sort itself out.

You know, if even half of the above posts are to be believed (about who's committing or not) then I'm going to ask the question... should we honestly consider withdrawing our Senior football team from the championship/league. And before anyone jumps down my neck.. I think A) it'd for once and for all expose the complete apathy that exists in the county at the minute, B) it'd give the county a clean start to channel a lot or all of the available funding into where its clearly needed, underage C) it'd make the GAA sit up and realise how f*cked the whole model is now.. the imbalance between the haves and have nots, the population disparity, the funding disparity, and so on. I honestly believe at some point in the next couple of years some county is going to take this drastic measure. Now, away ye go..let fly 

Absolutely, I can't think  of a better way to close the gap to the top counties than just not playing 

Isn't this what the players are doing? They've had enough. The last +5 years have been held together by a handful of committed long term servants coupled with the continuous cycle of new young lads coming in, getting burnt, and leaving again. Its starting to look like that scene in the great WW2 film Enemy at the Gates where the poor Russians charge the German line and get mowed down, and then another few Russians charge and pick up the dropped guns and makes another few yards before getting mowed down again, and the cycle continues.

You know, if even half of the above posts are to be believed (about who's committing or not) then I'm going to ask the question... should we honestly consider withdrawing our Senior football team from the championship/league. And before anyone jumps down my neck.. I think A) it'd for once and for all expose the complete apathy that exists in the county at the minute, B) it'd give the county a clean start to channel a lot or all of the available funding into where its clearly needed, underage C) it'd make the GAA sit up and realise how f*cked the whole model is now.. the imbalance between the haves and have nots, the population disparity, the funding disparity, and so on. I honestly believe at some point in the next couple of years some county is going to take this drastic measure. Now, away ye go..let fly 

I'd say we should go after all three of them... Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

It was the best of times... I remember leaving the local at 8am Monday morning... actually, I don't remember 😂