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I thought that we had improved by the most you can realistically expect to improve inside a week. Loads of further improvement possible of course. Especially when bringing the ball out of defence and not conceding stupid frees. Diarmuid Conway played well enough for a young guy being dropped in for his first match. Any news on Lee Cleere?

Personnel wise, the backs look settled and will improve. Fiachra Fennell has made midfield his own alongside Paddy Purcell. Cha and Ciaran Collier had much better games and are adding alot in the half forward line. Aaron Dunphy will find form eventually. Roddy is our best forward by a mile. However, we need two corner forwards that look dangerous from play. Maybe PJ will grow into the role as he has from frees but will need to be far more aggressive attacking the ball. Not sure Ciaran Comerford is a natural corner forward, seems better out the field. Would like to see Mark Hennessey and Stephen Bergin getting more of a run.

All the good vibes coming out of the camp all week
yet we were clueless today questions need to be
asked about this management team do they know
how to coach and improve this team we were in
div.2 for the last few years and we should be getting
better we looked like a div.3 team today
its just not good enough.

Have looked like a Div.3 at best for years. Same players, same results. No pace and no emerging talent. Old servants doing their best but not able to compete with younger athletic teams. Poxed to stay in Div.2 last year and almost certainly in trouble this year. Need to start replacing players with younger faster lads soon but rebuilding will be painful for a number of years.

Funny what people take out of a game.

For me, Laois were at a much earlier level of readiness than other counties this weekend. Tried hard but the basic hurling skills were a good way off where they were last year. Couldn't rise a ball, couldn't strike cleanly and quickly, couldn't take a sideline cut, couldn't pass the ball and hold onto it all day and the shooting and decision making was awful. Just were not as sharp as we were even early last year and nowhere near as sharp as any other county. Easy to say early days but all other counties maybe except WH were way ahead. Wasn't all bad though. At times the backs were excellent but once the ball was moving forward it was a disaster. Roddy was sharp but got very little ball as moon shots were chosen despite almost all wides getting blown across the same side of the goal.

Nice to see Cha back although he had a stinker. Same with Ciarán Collier who tried hard. Need two scoring corner forwards urgently but backs and Midfield look more settled.

I hope the emphasis in training changes to hurling sharpness fairly soon or we are in for worse hidings. Wexford only pulled away in the last 10 minutes and were only average until then.

Great to see Cha and Scully back. Could do with a few more backs in also (Leigh Bergin?).

Who is Sugrue?

John Sugrue

Portlaoise based Physiotherapist and Ex Laois Football manager.

Some around here might have heard of him


Cummins supposed to be involved as goalkeeping coach also

That would be Brendan Cummins Sunday game panelist and Ex Tipperary Hurling goalkeeper

Wow, great to have John Sugrue involved. Would have thought that if it was 'that' Sugrue that he might have found himself back in the football world.

Great to see Cha and Scully back. Could do with a few more backs in also (Leigh Bergin?).

Who is Sugrue?

Short term no need to worry about Portlaoise being a super club in hurling. They are in quite a bad place currently. There have been occasional green (and white!) shoots but there is 10 years work required to get them even back to where they were in the 90s.

If it does happen that Portlaoise become a dominant club then there are options. The town is more than big enough to support two clubs as is the case in many other county towns. However we are a million miles away from that. Not investing in Portlaoise because of an unfounded fear of the Dublin effect is madness.

History? Jesus H C...! Who wants history....we need forward- looking, future-looking, innovative people involved. Did Mickey Harte have history behind him, or Jim McGuinness? We only need a handful (with the right structures in place) and things can improve quickly. A few like John Kiely would be great. (he had no history behind him), but they are hard to come by for sure.
You cant stop trying - Cavan & Tipp footballers didn't anyway and they are provincial champions this year. We cant settle for the status quo even if many would like to see it preserved.
We have to strive for improvement and to better ourselves at all levels.

I agree. We have to strive to be the best we can be and be positive. We also need to be realistic.

The Galway U20 game was a complete mismatch. 3 all ireland minor teams on board and massive resources - Galway will expect a senior all-Ireland winning team from that team. We scraped past Carlow and had 3 poor / indifferent minor teams making up our U20 side. Last years minor team beat (a very good) Kildare. If we ever want to be competitive in the future the formula is fairly simple in theory but difficult in practice. We need far more competitive hurling areas in Laois, especially Portlaoise and strong development programs at club and county level to provide player pathways to adult hurling. That is what JPs money did in Limerick and what the Gaelfest program is doing in Antrim. Population and especially hurling population is against us so our approach needs to be more effective than other counties to produce 2-3 good enough hurlers per year.

Niall Corcoran joins Davy Fitz in Wexford

Thanks to Niall for his work in Laois. Sorry to see him go. Wexford's gain.

Hope Cheddar gets a couple of good hurling brains on board. Is Mick Dempsey's name still going around?

Holy god. Cheddar. Some man. After the dejection and disillusionment he must have felt working with the county board the last time to come back is amazing. I hope he gets a strong team around him as Eddie had. No better man to find resources too.

This is brilliant news of course.

The Messiah returns, again.

As in every other organization, it starts at the top. A progressive leader will bring progress. An unsuitable leader will defend the status quo and disenfranchise the progressives. The profile of our county board and the senior execs is wrong as in most counties. They are not hurling / football people as such but administrators. Unfortunately you don't see too many suitable folks putting their name forward. The likes of Niall Rigney, Pat Critchley, Cheddar and their football equivalents. I'll bet you would get far more ex-intercounty players involved in coaching and organizing if you had people like that in charge. Who would want to volunteer to help a county board that don't understand what it is like to train, manage or play at a high level for your club or county.

All things considered, Brennan, funding and the relative strength of our player pool, I do wonder sometimes what the end goal is. Win a Provincial? Seems very unlikely. Just be as good as you can be? What does that even mean? There's a pointlessness to all of this that gets harder to accept with each passing year and disappointment. Whoever follows Brennan, after all he exposed, would need to think long and hard about his future. Brennan did right to jump and I wouldn't blame Quirke if he did likewise. Sad to say, but you have to be realistic.

To be the best we can be is worthwhile always. To be the best of the 'Joe McDonagh' standard teams - who are all fine teams and play some great hurling. To be able to take a scalp every 2-3 years so that teams are wary of us. To maybe challenge for a provincial once every 10 years. This might be as good as we get but it is worth every bit of it to see Laois hurling people with their heads held high and kids wanting to hurl for Laois. Even with our small pool of players we can do much better. Who knows what the future holds if you can eventually get more hurling into places like Portlaoise and maybe the north of the county. No need for dejection. Lots of counties and inter-county hurlers would love to be in the position we are in.

Imagine:

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2020/1126/1180574-cork-gaa-unveil-ambitious-one-cork-vision/

Sure, he had the players going well for him, but in terms of thoroughness, I'd say Cheddar may have been better.

Cheddar probably overdid the physical prep and his teams were often lead-legged in important games. He was trying to build the team up to be able to compete physically. Our hurling was a good bit sharper under Eddie IMO. Cheddar is a legend but I would always prefer to have him on structure and development than directly managing our senior team. Niall Corcoran is easily as big a loss as Eddie and I would imagine they will go as a package to their next county.

A monumental day for Laois hurling, an absolute hammer blow...Not necessarily because Brennan is gone but the fact no manager with an ambition to improve Laois hurling will get the tools from our CB  to succeed. I guarantee no manager with any pedigree will touch this job as they are in no doubt what's in store if they have actual ambition...

I genuinely fear for the future of Laois hurling and in reality that I don't think our CB will be overly worried about Laois hurling falling off a cliff.

Sad day indeed. The best hurling I have ever seen from Laois came under Brennan. I hope the next manager is of the same calibre.

Football in the future will be same as hurling is these days. The idea that a small county can make a breakthrough will disappear. Multiple tiers not just in terms of leagues but also standards and aspirations. And what care have the GAA ever given to the fate of hurling in Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan or Mayo? (or Laois for that matter. Imagine what a €500k annual coaching investment would do to hurling in Laois, Westmeath, Carlow, Antrim etc. where there is no shortage of appetite but no resources).

Not Dublin's fault; they are so good it is an embarrassment to the GAA. A joy to watch but they have no competition. It's a bit like having the All-Blacks in the AIL, Liverpool in the league of Ireland or Celtic in the Scottish premiership. I would guess that Meath would put it up to Tipp, Cavan or Mayo and look what happened to them on Saturday.