Messages

Goon win for Abbeyleix Gaels at the weekend in the minor hurling replay. Also great to see a Wolfhill man playing his part, being 1 of 3 Ballypickas players on the team.

Yes, fair play to Abbeyleix. No surprise at all that they are winning at this level and so comprehensively. They are putting in huge work.

What do we know about the tactical capability of Sugrue? Perhaps someone has an insight. The suggestions are that he is progressive and smart but is there any evidence of this?

Wouldn't be the first time we gave the job to someone who wasn't interested!

Regardless of the draw, they look the team to beat and a 6th title in 11 years would propel them well ahead of their rivals in the bragging stakes.
[/quote

Surely Camross have to be considered favorites atm, they have already beaten rathdowney/errill and destroyed ballacolla in particular, where they looked extremely fit and clinical
[/quote

Camross will need to keep improving. R/E were poor against them and lost by a point and have improved quite a lot since then. Should be a massive game and can't see much between them.

I agree with previous posters that RE will beat CB. They should. But games between these two tend to take on a life of there own.
RE are still a serious team. They are currently 7/2. I think that is crazy generous.

R/E were flying during the league but have been poor in the championship to date. Abbeyleix challenged them right through until the last quarter. CB will raise their game for sure and these two teams have plenty of history in recent years. 50/50, could go either way.

Home I couldn't disagree more the current format is working well, all the games are competitive and in comparison to our county football championship the hurling works perfectly. I do agree that two games should be played a night, bigger crowds generate better atmosphere!

I agree. Every single game has something to play for, either a chance to progress or survive and the margins between survival and progression are tiny. With 2 groups of 4, if you lose your first 2 games, the last game will likely be a dead rubber. There are no dead rubbers in the current format. It is a little convoluted but the level of competitiveness is making a huge difference.

I think they should get back Sean Dempsey as a selector or be some way involved  but it needs to be a modern appointment with experienced selectors who are currently watching the championship here in Laois at moment .

I would doubt you are suggesting that Sean Dempsey would be a modern appointment? Sean had fantastic success in developing underage football but the type of football he tried to play with the seniors was more suited to the 70s than the 2010s. Would love to see him involved with coaching and development squads again as he was remarkably good.

2 quick points :

1: What Parkinson says makes a lot of sense and I'd second what he's saying.

2: To the person typing in text speak and then typing normally as if cured, go with typing normally, please. We don't care if your spelling and punctuation is off bt cn u c hw ann9ing dis iz m8? We can't make you type properly but we sure would appreciate it.

gr8 pst tny. We are all just too old for txt speak!

Not just Wooly who has been calling the management thing in Laois a shambles. Who has been happy since O'Flaharta was involved? Perhaps a panel of ex players and maybe even an outside consultant might do a good job. We will find the money for the right guy. If it is a case of 'who will do the job for 20 grand', then it is a self defeating thing. Poor quality appointment = poor results = no attendance at games = no money. Serious leadership required to sort out club football and senior team infrastructure and management. No evidence that it is there.

Cork and Kerry have had divisional teams for years to address this and have high quality club scenes as a result. Amalgamations work if you ignore the old dinosaurs who have too much influence on club committees and county boards. The players normally have different views. It has certainly made our club championship much better in hurling in a very short space of time. The challenge is to get it right from the start as you can't be changing your amalgamations every few years when population dynamics change. Unfortunately in Laois, I think we need to be a division 4 team with Portlaoise winning their 15th title in a row before anyone does anything meaningful. 8 competitive senior football teams is enough in Laois.

how ODs have fallen so low beats me.

Here's a symptom of it anyway. This is U14B. B, not A.

08-07-2016   18:30   SPINK   7 - 33   VS   0 - 0   O'DEMPSEYS   SPINK COMMUNITY FIELD   ANTHONY STAPLETON

I take it this was a hurling game with Anthony Stapleton refereeing?

Terrible conditions for hurling. Castletown got nearly all scores from frees. R/E were very dominant and were missing a few.

McNulty was building a system and ethos but probably too slowly. A bit like McGeeney he wanted a perfect defensive system and robotic compliance to a set plan and left the attacking plan for down the road once we got the defence right. The problem was that perfection was unobtainable and the team got stagnant and didn't express themselves going forward. Therefore we were always stuck with 14 men in the one half of the pitch. In fairness under McNulty Laois learned to compete physically and he transformed us from lightweights (go back 7 or 8 years and that was by far our no.1 complaint - men against boys). We also had more defensive shape than now although it is arguable if it was as effective as it needed to be. The challenge is to get the mix right and to blend patient penetration against blanket defences before taking on the shot, and knowing when to break at speed and get quick purposeful ball in. My assessment of Laois today is that we are at a very early stage of this and I hope we are working on improving it.

Anthony Cunningham's work has been tremendous and it is the main reason we are here.

Would ask the same question that I asked above. Is the Anthony Cunningham story myth or reality?

From previous comment:

How much do we know about his actual influence and capability? True, the team has tried to put a defensive structure in place since he has been involved but it has hardly been sophisticated. All I have seen so far is that we are putting 12-13 lads back into our half. What they do when they get there is still highly questionable and what we do when we get the ball is even more questionable. Would be interested in an inside view of whether they are building up a plan and starting to take shape around it or if the tactical planning has just switched from 'get out and do your best' to 'get out and do your best and most of ye stay back'. Hope it is not the case but wondering if anyone has any insight into a vision or a strategic direction for the team.

Couldn't agree more. Would be great if he can stay involved as a type of hurling director. That way he can both safeguard the very professional senior team set-up and influence the underage strategy. I think it is still the latter that is still letting us badly down. The retirement of Joe Fitz, Butch, John A etc. would not have been such a big problem if there was more talent pushing up from the underage structures. We still don't display the skill levels at underage or senior level necessary to compete. When we play against good teams on fast days our basics let us down too often. Pat Critchley saw that with last years minors where we couldn't compete with the wristwork or accuracy of Kilkenny and admitted that much more work was needed from primary school level to U-14/U16 level. We see the same in Tony Forrestal / Arrabawn competitions and at club level. Until we get the coaching standards right at underage, we are at best standing still and at worst going backwards and will be passed by counties like Carlow and Westmeath. I wonder if we did some sort of a quality assurance assessment of skill development at schools and club underage levels how we would compare to Kilkenny, Clare, or Waterford?

True. I'm just hoping that Cunningham will stay on. If not, we'll likely have a similar setup as the league again in 2017, and if that's the case, it'll be a disaster. It's no secret - the impact Cunningham has had. The players know it; the fans see it. I hope beyond hope he's kept on or promoted but I highly doubt it as a man of his talents isn't available for long. Get on it, County Board - if you've any sense at all. Lillis is a really nice football man but he's nowhere near enough to get the best out of the players. The likelyhood is that Lillis will be kept on, as this season looks half- decent - then Cunningham will go - then we'll have a very poor 2017 due to lack of know-how in the setup. I hope Laois are pro- active and don't let that happen. Cunningham for Laois 2017. There's no way we would have beaten Armagh twice or given a half decent account of ourselves vs Dublin without Cunningham on board.

How much do we know about his actual influence and capability? True, the team has tried to put a defensive structure in place since he has been involved but it has hardly been sophisticated. All I have seen so far is that we are putting 12-13 lads back into our half. What they do when they get there is still highly questionable and what we do when we get the ball is even more questionable. Would be interested in an inside view of whether they are building up a plan and starting to take shape around it or if the tactical planning has just switched from 'get out and do your best' to 'get out and do your best and most of ye stay back'. Hope it is not the case but wondering if anyone has any insight into a vision or a strategic direction for the team.