2021 National Football League

Started by Junior Ex Laoistalk, December 14, 2020, 11:51:53 PM

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Laois Rising

From the last two under 20 teams that made it to leinster finals you could argue that the teams were made up of a collective of good footballers as opposed to a team that was driven by 2/3 star or standout footballers. Ultimately, it is only the 'star' footballers from the underage grade that will realistically step up to the senior team and add to things at that level. Those Laois U20 sides of last two years full of fine players, however if we are expecting 7/8 of them to step up to senior in the next 12/24 months and make Laois a competitive division 2 team again I cannot see that happening.

I hear people giving out about Quirke not blooding more youth and annoyed regarding his reliance on the old guard. Unfortunately, I don't see those young footballers in the county who are really challenging or should be in the team ahead of the likes of Timmons, O'Loughlin, Begley, Kingston or Lillis.

My fear in that in the next 3/4 years we will have an abundance of good footballers to pick from- as in there will be little between about 50-60 footballers within the county. However, we wont have that star quality-those 5 or 6 top, top footballers who are a cut above the rest (e.g. Beano, Conway, Kevin Fitz, Tom Kelly of yester year) who can drive things within an intercounty set-up and which a good, truly competitive team can be built around.

Heshs Umpire

Quote from: Laois Rising on June 21, 2021, 03:10:25 PM
From the last two under 20 teams that made it to leinster finals you could argue that the teams were made up of a collective of good footballers as opposed to a team that was driven by 2/3 star or standout footballers. Ultimately, it is only the 'star' footballers from the underage grade that will realistically step up to the senior team and add to things at that level. Those Laois U20 sides of last two years full of fine players, however if we are expecting 7/8 of them to step up to senior in the next 12/24 months and make Laois a competitive division 2 team again I cannot see that happening.

I hear people giving out about Quirke not blooding more youth and annoyed regarding his reliance on the old guard. Unfortunately, I don't see those young footballers in the county who are really challenging or should be in the team ahead of the likes of Timmons, O'Loughlin, Begley, Kingston or Lillis.

I think that's a fair enough argument and it's also true that Quirke didn't have any sort of a preseason or O'Byrne Cup to look at a few potential new players meaning that he basically went with the same squad for two years in a row (with Donie coming back in for this year). He was under pressure from day one to try to keep us in Division Two.

Lacey, O'Flynn, Barry and Byron are in the squad at the moment. That's four players. I thought Diarmuid Whelan was a standout forward in 2019 but is he possibly injured? And I know one game isn't a great sample size but when we played Rosenallis in last year's championship, I though Eoin Dunne was excellent, way ahead of John O'Loughlin (who I'm not saying played badly either).

No matter who is charge of the team next year, I'd be hoping to see a decent effort at unearthing a few potential senior panel players over the coming six or seven months. As Laois Rising says there are possibly a lot of lads of the same standard out there but it's up to a decent manager to identify the ones he thinks he could make something of.
Well I could keep it above
But then it wouldn't be sky anymore

Chrimtain

I think Courtwood will be supplying a number of players to the Laois panel that will play in Division 3 next year, e.g. Byron, O'Flynns, Tyrrell and Dunne. It'll be interesting to see how Courtwood get on in this year's championship. Its great to see teams with exciting new talent on the way up.

High Fielder

Agreed. Tyrell Dunne and the 2 Flynns are good enough to be putting pressure on our Senior panellists. It is a shocking indictment of the lack of development in this county that Tyrell in particular has been allowed to drift. It was obvious he had talent many years ago. How lads like him, Dunne in Rosenalis and many many others can be cut loose baffles me. We seem to have serious problems recognising talent and bringing it to maturity.