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What the hell has happened with Westmeath?! They're second from the bottom, right now.

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It's relatively straight forward brother, unlike Offaly, who have a winning mentality that they discovered in the mid eighties, when they picked up all irelands, and continuing through to the naughties, although they inevitably fell away because like ourselves and Westmeath, they are relatively small in terms of population and have both codes competing annually, ourselves and Westmeath are confidence teams, a couple of wins and everything changes almost immediately. When we lost to Carlow in the first league game this year, we could easily have fallen apart, but one win and then going the Dr Cullen and producing a great display totally changed the Laois mindset, then hanging on to the coat tails of Offaly in Portlaoise, keeping the within two scores of us for 55 minutes until Paddy Purcell got the first of two goals, has completely changed the teams mindset, but I personally believe that if Offaly turned us over by a few points then we most definitely be looking at a different Laois team. Westmeath are exactly the same as Laois. They, like ourselves have some wonderful hurlers, but after a poor league campaign and losing to kerry has caused them to fall through the floorboards confidence wise. In live in Nottingham so I can only watch via livestream, but I watched Laois minors lose against Offaly, quite simply because we never believed that we could have beaten them. Offaly didn't win that game, Laois totally threw it away, hitting the post with an open goal at his mercy, poor decision after poor decision in front of goal proved that Laois have an uncanny habit of beating themselves. Finally I truly hope that I am wrong but the u20s will probably be exactly the same, because Offaly know what it takes to get over the line with an inferior team. Laois Will play Offaly in the Joe McDonagh final, forget about Kerry or Down, We beat Kerry by 10 points and they beat Down by a similar margin in the second round. Can we beat Offaly in a final with this current squad ?? Absolutely, but will we, we'll that's where psychology plays a major part. Finally I have a question that I would love an answer, Abbeyleix got to a senior final last year, although they were well beaten, but in the last ten years, they have won minor and u20 championships more than once, please explain why there is only one player in the whole squad ? Let's be brutally honest, if a town is almost perennially winning underage finals then they must have a few good hurlers so what's their problem

The two Byrne's are starting and playing well for Laois U20s and possibly will break into the Laois senior panel/team over the next few years. Shaun Fitzpatrick who was one of the main players on the teams that made successive U20 county finals is concentrating on football and is starting for the county footballers so is not available to the hurlers.

The majority of the senior team that made the county final are still very young and inexperienced. Perhaps one or two more will step up in the coming years to make a Laois panel e.g. Lawson Obulor. I don't think there is anyone in the club that you could argue is being wrongly overlooked by the Laois management. Remember, Abbeyleix were intermediate in Laois two years ago so those players need a couple of more years playing adult hurling to develop.

Of more concern is Portlaoise hurling and can it be revitalised over the next ten years that it's underage sides can be consistently contributing3/ 4/5 players to the county underage teams and in time feed players into the senior set up. On the current u20 panel I think I'm right in saying that Portlaoise only have one player who is the goalkeeper and I cannot think of anyone off the top of my head from Portlaoise on the senior panel this year. If Laois are to progress up the ladder we need a strong representation from the Town. I'm old enough to fondly remember the 80s with the likes of John Taylor, Pat Critchley, Liam Bergin, and Billy and John Bohan playing for Laois. Today's squad with 3/4 more players thrown in from Portlaoise of the ilk of these lads would give anyone in Leinster a game. We won't have a truly strong Laois side until hurling in Portlaoise is properly promoted and developed.   

We have a fine U20 team this year but Offaly look to be a couple of steps ahead of us and have plenty of the U20 team that won Leinster last year available to them. I'd still expect Laois to be competitive tonight-defensively the team have improved considerably on the Kilkenny game when we conceded far too many goal chances. Offaly by 5/6 points but Laois to give them a good challenge. Hopefully I'm wrong with the prediction and the U20s can replicate the performance of the seniors from a few weeks ago. 

Laois did get a huge slice of luck with Fermanagh's best player getting red carded early in the game last year. Had it been 15 on 15 for the entire game I'm not sure we would have won out in the end. Wicklow game is a 50/50 game and Carlow are not at the races this year so we should pick up a victory there.

Losing to Offaly in the manner that we did was a good reality check for the players-after the Leitrim win we definitely had an inflated sense of where we were at. Sligo's dismantling of Leitrim in Connaught really showed how weak Division 4 was this year and how far off the rest the country teams like Laois and other Division 4 counties are. Laois have a big gap to bridge next year if they are compete for promotion from division 3 with the likes of Sligo and Kildare in 2025.

Laois are very capable of making the Tailteann Cup quarter finals. McNulty will have the team well prepared and hopefully we will be competitive against whoever we face. I still don't think we have enough players with real pace which will be a problem later down the tracks if we get to Croke Park and have to face a side like Sligo or Down.   
   

If Laois were to lose to Kerry, Down or Westmeath you could have a scenario that the Joe McDonagh Final places end up being decided by points difference come end of the league part of the competition. Important that Laois put a decent score up on Meath this weekend.   

It's no surprise that Laois' upturn in performance and results has coincided with Mossy Bruce's return to the forum!!!!

Huge game for this group of players. Probably our best panel for many years. Offaly are c**k of the walk at the minute with all these superstars coming. I think our lads will wire into them, they have turned a corner since the league game with Carlow. Lose and we are in trouble, win and we have a real chance of getting to a final and can dream of the glory days of 2019 again. Wouldnt that be fantastic.
We need a big laois crowd on Sunday and the clubs need to drum up a big following. Its the least the players deserve for their efforts.

Well said. The league final performance was one of the best Laois performances in years. Hopefully they can find another gear this weekend and having a good support at the game will surely help.

Plenty of time to regroup and focus on the Tailteann Cup. Priority for the year was league promotion and progressing and challenging in the latter stages of the Tailteann Cup. Saturday was poor but ultimately the Leinster championship was not a priority this year. Losing to Offaly doesn't hurt as bad as it would have 20 years ago knowing that they will probably suffer a right hiding against Dublin next day out. In fact, we probably did ourselves a favour losing on Saturday. 

While Dublin are on a 13 in a row streak and it will probably continue for another couple of years surely the work that Kildare and Meath have done at underage football will ultimately bare fruit.

Kildare have three u20/21 Leinster winning sides (2018, 2022, 2023) while Meath have three Leinster minor winning sides (2018, 2020, 2021) in the last 6 years. With some of the talent already in these counties and with younger players with a taste for success filtering through you would be optimistic that the landscape in Leinster GAA football can change in the not too distant future.

In Kildare's case it might need a new management team and hitting the reset button in 2025 after seeing them in the league this year. O'Rourke deserves time-they easily maintained division 2 status and are coming off the back of winning the Tailteann Cup last year. 3-19 in windy conditions is serious shooting the last day against Longford. You would expect them to up their intensity considerable the next day against Dublin and for the defence to tighten up and be more tigerish in the tackle.   

Any potentially good senior players in the making from either u-20s or minor panels?

From looking at the u20s

John Brennan looks like a senior prospect. I thought Darragh Slevin was decent against Carlow and has a bit of pace. Jake Darcy also decent.  Cathal Lee from clonaslee is another one worth looking at in the next few years at senior. I like the two midfielders , they are raw but have great potential.  Its hard to judge the forwards over the past two games due to weather conditions. To be honest none of them really showed that they are of senior inter county standard but maybe on a dry day we might see one or two of them emerge.

I think that is a very good summary of what is there. There is no one or two players that are really standing out head and shoulders over everyone else that you would describe as a nailed on intercounty senior player. It has been a long time since we produced players with the x-factor. If Laois are to return to being a top 12 side in Ireland in the next 5-10 years then these are the players we will need to start producing again. Otherwise, even with the best manager, organisation and commitment there is a ceiling on what can be realistically achieved.

Last year the team had a number of injuries or players just coming back from injury when we played Offaly in the opening round of the Joe McDonagh. We were also coming off the back of a poor league campaign. This year the team look to be in a far healthier place for the start of this year's championship and I really hope they will be carrying a feel good factor into the game with a victory over Carlow. It really looks like a three horse race between ourselves, Westmeath and Offaly for the Joe McDonagh. The last two performances in the league have been very encouraging- this Laois team might be peaking at the right time this year. Offaly have stepped up from last year as well. Should be a right competitive encounter when the two sides meet.   

Bar the Leitrim game it has been a solid league campaign. With promotion pretty much in the bag I wonder were the squad put through a hard training week prior the Leitrim game. It might explain the performance, especially the last 15-20minutes where Leitrim were the far more energetic and lively team by the end. The test of this team will be the Offaly game and ensuring that they reach the latter stages of the Tailteann Cup where we show competitiveness against whoever we may face. 

I think the league is worth protecting and winning a national competition in Croke Park on a finals day is something worth striving for by any team. We should be building up the significance of and celebrating the achievements of counties winning a national league title.

What Derry has achieved so far this year is hugely impressive and watching them in a league final v Dublin in Croker in front of 40,000 plus would interest me far more greatly than having to watch the 24 championship group games dragged out over 4 weeks that are played to lose only four counties from the All-Ireland race by the end of it. We should be protecting the big footballing days on our calendar, not trying to get rid of them.     

With the way the remaining fixtures play out, Tipperary are still not out of the running for promotion as they have Wexford and Leitrim in their final two games. Win both of those and then it comes down to Longford beating Carlow and home and then Wexford beating Longford at home in the final round of games and they will finish level on points with a number of other teams in second. Score difference will become the deciding factor then. By conceding home advantage it appears that they are waving the white flag to trying to gain promotion from the league this year.

 

I would imagine the final will be in a neutral venue unless the two sides agree to a coin toss to decide who gets home advantage. Last year, Offaly and Kildare's final was played in Portlaoise. Would Nolan Park be the most realistic neutral venue for a final? I wouldn't mind if final was in Dr. Cullen. A final deserves to be played in front of a decent crowd-adds to the spectacle and occasion. If final was in Nowlan Park would do well to get 1500 at the game.   

Looking back now, that Tipperary minor winning team deserves even more credit that they possibly get. The Dublin team that they defeated that day was considered one of Dublin's finest ever minor teams and many of them went on to backbone the all conquering 6 in a row All-Ireland side. Kilkenny, Mannion, McCaffrey, McDaid, Costello, Lowndes and Small were all starters on the team and Niall Scully was only a sub. It was an incredible feat looking back now. Thanks to Covid lockdowns they were able to get some of the stars of that team back for the year they won Munster. A nice reward for those mentors and coaches who invested so much time, energy and commitment into underage football in Tipperary during the mid to late 00s and early 2010s.