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Leinster looks wide open for the next few years.
Dublin will improve with O'Callaghan, Murchan, Boylan back.
Meath, Kildare not a million miles away.
Westmeath and Louth will both be out to prove they weren't one hit wonders.
Kinda think we (Laois) aren't terrible either (we hammered Westmeath a couple of months ago!) but terribly inconsistent.

That's great SCFC. Who's over them?

Sorry - have no idea!

A chink of light maybe?
Was in the COE this morning and our under 16 footballers beat a Galway team comfortably.
I know these games are notoriously unreliable form guides but they looked a well coached team.

Terrible. How do we go from drawing luckily with them last year to a 9 point beating?
No more room for slip ups now. Antrim or ourselves will probably be out of contention after the next game.

Crazy that he got another year in charge of them.
I heard of a chap who played to a very high club level last year not getting a call from the management and when his club queried it, they were told they "didn't know" he was underage!

149 in the three schools mentioned by Saint 1963 as being in Ballyadams parish.

Wouldn't think there are 150 pupils altogether in the 3 schools in Ballyadams Parish. (Luggacurren school is closed almost 50 years).
Think I read in the run up to the Senior and Intermediate finals that Rath and Rathineska both have over 300 pupils and I shudder to think how many are in the big school at the back of Beladd alone in Portlaoise so the fact that we have only 1 on the minor panel is a reflection of numbers unfortunately!

Something is going very wrong at underage level with the development of players. With our bigger clubs they can go from having a decent team one year to a weak team the next-tends to be down to the quality of parents involved with certain teams that decides their development. Schools are hugely disappointing-outside of Knockbeg who are competitive at senior level without ever really looking like winning the competition. In other counties we see schools playing a big role in helping the progression of young players. 

The minor panel for this year is a perfect example of something amiss in the county. Crettyard have five players on the minor panel this year with probably 15-20 boys maximum in the parish of that age to draw upon and then you have a town of 20,000 plus in Portlaoise and they feeding in 2 players. Traditional strongholds like Stradbally-no players, St. Joseph's 1. What is happening in these clubs with the size of pick available to them that they are not developing and bringing through players on an annual basis.

Laois will only be strong when the likes of Josephs, Stradbally and Portlaoise are strong. Traditionally when Laois go well its when are stronger, traditional clubs are going strong too.

I'd like to know what the PERCEPTION is of the 'size of pick' available to St Josephs. I honestly can't put it in numbers so can anyone throw a bit of light on it from a Census or whatever. I do know theres only 5 housing estates in the ENTIRE parish, which is a very large area, and 4 of those estates are up in The Swan. Theres 100 houses in total between those 4 estates, and it's a 25 mile round trip to Kellyville from there. Which makes me laugh at suggestions that Portlaoise moving 2 miles out to Rathleague may be an issue. There are approximately 15 kids in wolfhill school, maybe 35 kids in The Swan school. I'd imagine Luggacurren school is relatively modest too, and I believe numbers are dropping in Ballyadams.. and that's your 4 main areas in a very large parish by area. Yes, bigger numbers than a Crettyard or Barrowhouse or whoever, but don't confuse area with population. I'll take a guess here.. are there 400 to 500 houses in the parish?... I don't know. But one, I can't think of another club who's biggest population centre is a 25 mile round trip from their pitch, and two, a parish that's so big but has such small schools. All those factors have existed since day one, but every club can see new challenges post-Covid especially. 'NEW' parents aren't as inclined to drive 4 nights a week, or even 6 nights a week and bypass maybe 5 other clubs just to get to their parish club. I'd love to hear opinions, but not abuse. Thanks.

Can't disagree with any of that but Joes always have three strong adult teams and are usually decent at all underage levels.
They're definitely one of the "bigger" football clubs in my mind.

211 in Ratheniska
194 in Rath
Both have pretty big numbers of kids in ASD units too so not massive numbers of boys really.
Portarlington boys school for instance has 521 boys this year!

Whatever chance we have/had of staying up, we need all our best players involved. We're already on the back foot because so many aren't in there. Aside from that, we're in a right mess. But look, let's play musical chairs at the next CB meeting. That should fix it. No other county would tolerate this BS

who are all theses best players port have 5 or 6 in courtwood county runners up have a good few in.

Mark Barry
Seamus Lacey
Padraig Kirwan
Niall Dunne
Sean O'Flynn
Damon Larkin
Shaun Fitzpatrick
James Kelly

That's just eight excellent players not involved for whatever reasons. Injuries, travel, work.

Well, it's stating the obvious but would have been great to win Saturday evening rather than that draw but I also feel that Limerick are pretty decent and will pick up plenty of points. Might be a point gained rather than a point lost?

Hard to pick out great Laois performances the other night. Both midfielders did well, Paddy O'Sullivan is always good and Swayne did OK too.

Not wonderful in attack. Evan well marshalled and we missed an awful lot of decent chances.

Kind of a second string team played down in Carlow today.
Most of team that played Dublin were held back for a challenge game v Cavan tonight.
A few highlights from Carlow game. Big midfielder Burke did well. Young lads Slattery and Nolan were very impressive. Kinsella with two goals did well. Mohan is a good corner back. Sub Darcy did well before losing the rag a bit!

Wasn't at it but watched on Clubber.
Great to see Evan back. Looked sharp.
Not too many other standout performers. Killian Byrne, Cian Doyle showed well. Ben O'Connor too. Bit sloppy at the back to concede 4 goals. Heffernan and Tyrrell decent enough in the middle. Dunne and O'Sullivan did well off the bench.

Team named for tomorrow;

Killian Roche (Killeshin); Conaire Gee (Ballyroan-Abbey), Trevor Collins (Graiguecullen), Ben O'Connor (Portlaoise); Jack Lacey (St Joseph's), Kevin Swayne (Portlaoise), Aaron McEvoy (Ballyroan-Abbey); Robert Tyrrell (Courtwood), Conor Heffernan (Killeshin); Killian Byrne (Ballyroan-Abbey), Cian Doyle (Courtwood), Josh Hogan (Portlaoise); Niall Corbet (Clonaslee St Manman's), Brian Byrne (Graiguecullen), Evan O'Carroll (Crettyard). Substitutes: Matthew Byron (Courtwood), Dan Boland (Courtwood), Mikie Dempsey (St Joseph's), Colin Dunne (Arles-Killeen), Darren Brennan (Portlaoise), Alan Kinsella (Courtwood), Cathal Lee (Clonaslee-St Manman's), Eoin Montague (Emo), Sean O'Neill (The Rock), Paddy O'Sullivan (Portarlington), Joey Shelly (Rosenallis).

Also see Dublin have a very unrecognisable team named for the game. Great to see Evan back and looking forward to seeing some of the new faces.

Port sort a new manager yet?

Ronan Sweeney. Ex Kildare player.

It's not about "look at soccer" though.
It's look at all other aspects of society that deal with Israel in some form or another.
The question posed at the start of the thread asks if the GAA should or shouldn't drop its deal with Allianz.
It's easy enough to acknowledge that what's happening in Israel is wrong while at the same time maintain the opinion that, no, the GAA shouldn't be pressured (either internally or externally) into taking some sort of lead in discontinuing its dealings with a company who profit from dealing with Israel.

Internally? Members opinions don't count and by definition should be ignored? There will be pickets at league games, and some members won't pass them.

But the core point is Allianz are an outllier. Their level of funding of the war is bigger than any other company. Complaining that soccer has a naming deal with Aviva, who 'merely' sell insurance in Israel is a deliberate missing of the point. And interestingly only became a talking point on here after Burns used the line that they are all as bad as each other.

It's not about "look at soccer" though.
It's look at all other aspects of society that deal with Israel in some form or another.
The question posed at the start of the thread asks if the GAA should or shouldn't drop its deal with Allianz.
It's easy enough to acknowledge that what's happening in Israel is wrong while at the same time maintain the opinion that, no, the GAA shouldn't be pressured (either internally or externally) into taking some sort of lead in discontinuing its dealings with a company who profit from dealing with Israel.

Internally? Members opinions don't count and by definition should be ignored? There will be pickets at league games, and some members won't pass them.

But the core point is Allianz are an outllier. Their level of funding of the war is bigger than any other company. Complaining that soccer has a naming deal with Aviva, who 'merely' sell insurance in Israel is a deliberate missing of the point. And interestingly only became a talking point on here after Burns used the line that they are all as bad as each other.

Who said members opinions don't count? Some members expressed an opinion, the matter was discussed at national level and a decision reached that their opinion didn't merit changing the position on the deal in place.
If there are pickets at league games, some members won't pass them but I'm sure many will.

It's not about "look at soccer" though.
It's look at all other aspects of society that deal with Israel in some form or another.
The question posed at the start of the thread asks if the GAA should or shouldn't drop its deal with Allianz.
It's easy enough to acknowledge that what's happening in Israel is wrong while at the same time maintain the opinion that, no, the GAA shouldn't be pressured (either internally or externally) into taking some sort of lead in discontinuing its dealings with a company who profit from dealing with Israel.