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We can talk all day about negative tactics in the game but it's up to teams to adapt and I think that's a fascinating aspect; I don't like all this hand passing but it's within the rules.
By big beef is refereeing. My God. What is going to be done about the standard of referees. It's too easy dismiss critics as having no respect - sure we would all like to say nothing about are but they are so so bad.
Game after game we see refs giving one side an easy ride and hammering their opponents. then maybe after all the damage is done, after token free are given to balance out the free count. It is shocking.
One minute 4 players surround a player and pulverise him and the ball carrier is penalised for over carrying, the next incident for the opposition results in a free against the tacklers......can't accept this as being ok.
The assessment of referees is the greatest waste of time. The assessors seem to know as little about the game as a man from Mongolia. They are obsessed with presentation, socks up, number of subs warming up, incursions onto the pitch and never pick up on the consistent inconsistencies that occur in a single match! That's  mouthful I know.
I'd agree kingston probably was hard done by and Billy Sheehan may have been he cause of it. He gets under my skin. Chalky White got away with murder last night and should have been sent off but cutely Kildare subbed him before it happened.

Agree with every word of this. The nature of the game is that the rules are not always easy to interpret but the lack of common sense shown by so many referees is mind-boggling.

I didn't see what happened myself but for sure no Kildare player seemed to be making any issue of it (which in fairness was the case all through). JOL swung an arm a bit dangerously at a player behind him in the first half and that player (No. didn't make too much of an issue of that either in fairness to him.

Sick after that yesterday.

Overall, I suppose you have to credit Kildare for the way they came back to snatch the game at the end but I don't agree that the better team won yesterday. As someone else said, despite everything, we had the game in our own hands and poor decision-making in front of goal probably cost us the game in the end.

As far as I was concerned, our key men and in particular our midfielders were abused the whole way through the game. The Kildare tactic seemed to be to focus on the man rather than the ball when the ball was on its way into the midfield area. Our lads got no protection at all from the referee and I have to take my hats off to the two of them for holding their discipline in what must have been a really frustrating evening for them.

The same thing goes (to a lesser extent) for Kingston. Although he had fewer sneaky digs to contend with, he was being pulled and dragged the whole game long. I have been following Kingston since the beginnng of his career and of all the Laois players to be accused of aggression and off-the-ball messing, he would be the very last on this list. I often thought that his biggest weakness was that he doesn't show enough physical aggression (compared to the likes of Michael Murphy). I certainly don't ever remember seeing him sent off before (maybe the earlier poster is confusing him with Conor Meredith) and he seemed very surprised to get the red card. I didn't see anything happening but for sure nobody ended up on the deck and nobody got hurt. Maybe Donnelly's Hollow could tell us about the nature of his reaction?? At the same time, it looked at one stage as though Tom Shiels might not escape from the ground with all his limbs. Some of the tackles on him could only be described as an assault for which he wasn't even awarded a free, never mind a punishment for the culprit. It was also clear that the Kildare man fouled the ball in the lead up to the goal.

This, by the way, is the same referee who did such a great job of the All-Ireland u-21 semi final between Cavan and Dublin last year when he robbed Cavan of at least a draw and had to be escorted out of the grounds. How they let people like that continue to referee big matches is beyond me. Anyway, I certainly hope there is some video evidence that exonerates Donie because we desperately need him for the game in Down.

Given the shortage of resources, I thought the backs did very well. Timmons was again masterful and for almost 70 minutes Kildare had no serious chance of a goal. Robbie Kehoe did the sweeping job very well and Colm Begley and Strong were both good again (although Darren had a few wild attempts at scores in the first half when a bit more calmness might have been better). On the down side, we conceded several soft frees again (some of which were very dubious indeed) but nevertheless we have to be careful about that.

The forwards didn't quite click yesterday although you did get the impression that there could be goals in them. Although Niall Donoher had an excellent game in general play, a few crucial misses in the second half cost us. Same for Evan O Carroll. Had a really good game overall but wasn't quite able to finish all his chances clinically - the goal chance in particular wasn't really a goal chance from the angle he was at and it was an opportunity wasted. Conor Boyle sprayed the ball around very well but couldn't get the scoreboard ticking. Ross had another off day. Although Paul Kingston has lost out in 75% of the balls that went into his area, I think it was very harsh to make the change so quickly, especially given the fact that he is only finding his feet at this level - I'm not sure what impact it has on young lads' long-term confidence. Having said that, Tom Shiels really looks like he could turn into a super player - a few things didn't quite work for him but he clearly has what it takes. Overall, I don't think we would have too much to fear from Kildare come the championship.

Although I wouldn't necessarily see them as automatic starters now, it would be really great to have O'Leary, McMahon and Meredith available for the championship squad. I wonder is there any chance of that happening?

I'd imagine that this will be a real championship style encounter on Saturday. Kildare backs are really up against the wall and that's always dangerous. Although our lads have shown a lot of character to battle back from the bad start, I don't think the performance level against Galway would be enough. We'll probably have to show roughly the same level of performance that we got against Roscommon to win this one. On the positive side, the confidence of our lads should be up and if we all turn up, we should have nothing to fear. Hope Hanrahan recovers from the injury in time - we're a bit short of backs!

It was good to see a few more from Laois at the match by the way. Still not hundreds but at least you'd need more than two hands to count them. More of a reception of Laois yesterday than they got for the Roscommon match in Portlaoise so that's something.

Another good win today.

Played against a ferocious wind in the first half and could only manage 1-1. Our goal came out of a complete c**k up by the Galway keeper but fair play to Kingston who dispossessed him very cleanly and finished to an empty net. We had another goal chance (again Kingston) in the first half that was well saved by the keeper and a few attempts at points that were well off target to say the least. In that first half, we weren't doing as well in midfield as we had been doing but the defence did well enough against the strong wind - Galway had no goal chance all through and most of their scores came from long range shots and/or several handy frees (a good few of which were conceded by Robbie, who is a player I like but he needs to be more careful in the tackle).

Going in only 6 points down at half time, I was fairly confident we'd get back into the game. Although we ended up beating them by 12 points in the half, I didn't think we were as good as we have been. The midfield improved a bit but still wasn't dominant, Begley wasn't in the game as much as he has been, Boyle wasn't as influential as he was, Ross was still off colour (although he was getting to a lot of ball first). Kingston was really magnificent again and Donoher got through a good bit of work. Although they were taken off, I thought Evan O Carroll (in particular) and Paul Kingston did quite well although both subs (Shiel and Attride) both made their contributions. Overall, it was a good win but I'd imagine we'd have to be 25% better to give Kildare a game.

Final word on Marty Duffy who is............ undoubtedly one of the best referees in the country......

I would also agree that Boyle's move to the forwards has been a positive thing. It is true that he hasn't great pace, which is why it's better that he shouldn't play wing back. He reminds me a bit of Bruno - he lost his pace and the move into the forwards gave him a new lease of life. I think the role he played against Meath suited him very well.

Do we know anything about Hanrahan's injury? Overall, I thought we was making a very good fist of the corner back position.

As regards the selection of Dillon, I would imagine that if the manager has some doubts about him, he shouldn't start him (rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt to start and then whip him off when a few things go wrong). This thing of taking people off early all the time can be very damaging to a player's confidence. Anyway, it would be hard to leave Paul Kingston on the bench on the basis of his last 2 performances.

I assume the Corofin boys will be still drunk by next Sunday? 

You have to admire how lads on here know so much about the game that they can conclude that a lad isn't inter-county standard after two half games. If you were to look at Ross's performance yesterday, you might say he's not inter-county standard too and he's been a star for us for over a decade. And then we wonder why lads are not committing to the panel. Will you give the lad a chance...

The first half of the game itself was really pretty poor all round from our point of view. Whereas last week, we were clever and efficient in our play, this week we reverted to silly passes, shots from ridiculous angles, poor handling. We were left wide open on at least 3 or 4 occasions and could easily have conceded 2 or 3 goals. Meath had far more pace than we had and they used it very well.

In the second half, we battled our way back into it through sheer force of will. JOL was brilliant again, as were Timmons, Quigley, Kingston and Boyle who is doing very well in the forwards. The pace of the Meath team was still a problem but luckily our forwards were better at taking their chances and that's what got us the result in the end. All the subs introduced did well (especially Paul Kingston and Tom Shiel) and Damien O Connor was unlucky with that last effort that would have won us the game. Personally, I was glad to see that he had the confidence to go for it.

Again, a poor crowd of Laois supporters in Navan and little hope for any improvement on Sunday next.

Just my opinion son. Ross may not have scored much but he got on a lot of ball and won valuable frees. Dillon is probably the 5th best Portlaoise forward, I wish the lad the best and hope he proves me wrong but he hasn't done anything to justify selection yet!
Paul Kingston has looked very impressive, I'm still waiting on the return of Costello. I think the kid has got it! If anyone has watched some division 1 football you can clearly see the standard we're playing against is far behind but this is where we are and we seem to be competitive at this level.

Jeez, I wonder who's the 6th best Portlaoise forward? Dillon's been going training and clearly the manager and selectors, who have seen a lot more of him than you have, have seen something in him. From what I understand, he was considered one of Portlaoise's better players last year.  I don't know whether you were at the game but I don't think anyone could conclude that the first half display was down to the performance of Dillon. Having said that, you couldn't disagree that Paul Kingston has looked very good in the last 2 games.

Fully agree on the crowd for the Kildare match. A bit of promotion of the match doesn't have to be that difficult.

I should have said earlier that I thought Colm Begley also did a fine job on Graham Reilly who has done us several times in the past. Super performance from him too.

You have to admire how lads on here know so much about the game that they can conclude that a lad isn't inter-county standard after two half games. If you were to look at Ross's performance yesterday, you might say he's not inter-county standard too and he's been a star for us for over a decade. And then we wonder why lads are not committing to the panel. Will you give the lad a chance...

The first half of the game itself was really pretty poor all round from our point of view. Whereas last week, we were clever and efficient in our play, this week we reverted to silly passes, shots from ridiculous angles, poor handling. We were left wide open on at least 3 or 4 occasions and could easily have conceded 2 or 3 goals. Meath had far more pace than we had and they used it very well.

In the second half, we battled our way back into it through sheer force of will. JOL was brilliant again, as were Timmons, Quigley, Kingston and Boyle who is doing very well in the forwards. The pace of the Meath team was still a problem but luckily our forwards were better at taking their chances and that's what got us the result in the end. All the subs introduced did well (especially Paul Kingston and Tom Shiel) and Damien O Connor was unlucky with that last effort that would have won us the game. Personally, I was glad to see that he had the confidence to go for it.

Again, a poor crowd of Laois supporters in Navan and little hope for any improvement on Sunday next.

Glad to see that we're sticking with the same 15. I think Gareth Dillon has a lot to offer at this level and I hope he has a fine game. If we could pick up some points here, we'd be putting ourselves in a good position. We haven't had a great record against Meath (and Graham Reilly) though so we need to improve again on the last day.

I know it's on telly but with the good weather promised for the weekend, I hope a good crowd will travel. They deserve the support.

Personally, I think Mark Timmons is the best full back we have (by a long way). He is definitely inter-country standard. While it would be nice to have O Leary and McMahon fighting for wingback positions, and Cahir Healy as a man marker or centre back, I think Strong, Kehoe, Attride, Begley and maybe O Connor are all good players that can do a good job in the half backs.

I agree that our defence hasn't been great this year but I don't think this is because of the quality of the players. Better defence requires harder work all round the pitch. It also requires a system of sweeping and covering so that defenders are left one-on-one as infrequently as possible. Our lads are being left one-on-one far too often and that bit definitely needs to improve.

I'm not sure that John O Loughlin, or several of the other members of the team, are properly appreciated by the Laois supporters. I'm not surprised at all that he's a regular on the team of the week.

As regards the fitness thing, I'm not sure that fitness levels could have changed all that much from the last day. From my point of view, two important things changed. Firstly, the team simply looked more "up for it" on Sunday. You could see it even in the warm up - they knew this was a do or die scenario really. The mentality of the players was different this time.

The second thing that changed was that the selection of Boyle and Dillon in the half forward line bought more zip and energy to the half forward line and Boyle in particular used the ball very well. I'd like to see us keep those high energy players for the remainder of the league. Damien O Connor or Attride could be used very well as a sweeper which is really needed I think.

We need a few more like unlaoised in Navan on Saturday night.