Tailteann Cup 2023

[Sideline12]

The first and most important ingredient to an intercounty footballer today is pace. It's incredible to think that within the county we genuinely do not have any players with any real speed. Even most mid rank counties would have at least a half dozen players with serious pace to either man mark, get up and down the field or to win ball played in front of them and create attacking opportunities. Ross Munnelly last year at 39 years of age was probably still the quickest forward we had on the panel over the first 5-10 yards. That tells you everything. Losing the likes of Attrite a few years ago was a huge loss as we could not replace him and what he brought to the Laois defence. Over the last 6-7 years he has been the only defender to come through who was truly capable of properly competing at inter county level. We have a lot of very fine footballing players in there now who are comfortable on the ball and will no doubt do a very fine job for their clubs in the club championship where the pace of the game will be that bit slower. However, as yesterday showed, footballing ability is no good if you cannot keep pace with your opponent. Down had their homework done for Laois and knew exactly what to do to hurt us.

I don't know how much you can coach speed into a player but if a lot of those Laois players want to stay playing at intercounty level it is something that they will need to work on over the off season. At the beginning of the league last year and again this year we recorded what appeared to be impressive away victories to Louth and Sligo. What these games showed was that on heavy pitches where pace is taken out of the equation we have players of good footballing ab ility.   

T A SUPER EXCELLENT POST WELL SAID, 
L R.

[Giovanni]

HF I don't understand your defence of BS at all. Of course there may be a lot of things wrong with the country board (honestly, I don't know) but the county board is not preparing the team or making defensive plans. This is down to the team and management.

I think everyone on here understands that if we were to play Dublin, Kerry or Mayo tomorrow, we'd most likely be beaten well no matter who the manager is.

However, what happened yesterday is a humiliation against a Tailteann Cup team (albeit one that's on an upward curve). We were lucky that we didn't get the same outcome against Limerick and we squeaked through against a 14-man Fermanagh. We drew with London and lost to Wicklow this year.

There are enough good players in Laois to create a team that's competitive in games like this. A John Sugrue team would not have ended up with a pasting like this. He had, for example, turned Robbie Piggott into a really excellent man marker focused on eliminating the threat of the opponent's best player. He is now a corner back (!) and really not influencing the game at all. That's where management comes in. It's about picking your best players in their best positions and giving them a role that they can actually fulfil. It's about ensuring that the team adds up to more than the sum of the parts.

[High Fielder]

No Billy is a dreadful manager, any level of organisational ability and we would be far more competitive.

I disagree. They were the best we have available out there yesterday.  They could never get near Down

[Giovanni]

Just a reminder that Down finished 3rd in Division 3 and were beaten 4-10 to 0-12 points by Armagh in the Ulster championship. Sure, they're a decent young team but hardly world beaters.

[High Fielder]

Of course. But even allowing for that we're a long way off them. We have to learn to accept that we're in a desperate place. Only when we fully acknowledge that will we set about fixing it. There are still a lot of people who can't accept that we don't have the players at the moment

The senior clubs have us properly castrated too. This insistence on 16 senior teams when in reality we probably haven't got 4 properly senior clubs. I believe every player should have access to senior football,  but I can't tolerate watching teams clinging on just to call themselves senior. It needs shaking up as an immediate priority. We have so many truly awful senior teams

[High Fielder]

People won't walk into a closed shop. Many people with good intentions have gone in and either been outvoted or shot down. That's how it operates. Honestly it's an outdated process in itself. But they seem happy to have it and happy to use it to their advantage

Open it up. Properly. Let's see what we've got

[Jd]

A proper defensive plan cuts out 5 of them goals straight away. They were long balls in to lads being marked 1 on 1 cos we pushed up on the kickouts. Not possible to defend like that in the modern age and not fair to expose players like that either. One goal came from a kickouts that almost rolled from midfield to the half forward line ffs. I'm not saying we'd have won but at least keep it tight till half time and reassess then.... we only kicked 4 points anyways so we might as well have 14 behind the ball and be as nasty and cynical as we could get away with. Would Offaly or carlow turn up with a plan like that. To say that the players are not capable of competing at this level is pure bull. Port would do better than that. It's about a plan and how they train. We were here before john sugrue took over saying the same stuff and suddenly we were div 2. I could name 5 or 6 players capable of playing Co football  who were not in there. Some declined which I'd be annoyed about and some were not asked. That's down to management not asking or making it attractive for them. This comes down to asking x why he won't come in and if x says its cos of work then we tell him that it'll be sorted out if x says its to do with finance then we get that sorted. Transport?? No problem it's sorted. Same for hurlers get the best people in and take away any excuse they might have for declining. I heard of a player being locked out of a meeting for being seconds late after travelling a long distance  for training. That auld stuff has to stop. Put the players first give them the best training the best plan and tactics and I bet a pound to a penny we'd fly div 4 and be strong in Tailteann Cup next year

[redsetanta]

Just talking about the margin of defeats, I thought the Dublin defeat was the worst in my memory but the Down game surpassed that.

When were we last beaten, if ever, by that much in a championship game?

[Spiritof86]

Just talking about the margin of defeats, I thought the Dublin defeat was the worst in my memory but the Down game surpassed that.

When were we last beaten, if ever, by that much in a championship game?

Not sure about championship but I believe this result was our biggest defeat ever .


Kerry Vs Laois in Tralee on December 3rd, 1978

Kerry 6-11; Laois 0-0.

[High Fielder]

A proper defensive plan cuts out 5 of them goals straight away. They were long balls in to lads being marked 1 on 1 cos we pushed up on the kickouts. Not possible to defend like that in the modern age and not fair to expose players like that either. One goal came from a kickouts that almost rolled from midfield to the half forward line ffs. I'm not saying we'd have won but at least keep it tight till half time and reassess then.... we only kicked 4 points anyways so we might as well have 14 behind the ball and be as nasty and cynical as we could get away with. Would Offaly or carlow turn up with a plan like that. To say that the players are not capable of competing at this level is pure bull. Port would do better than that. It's about a plan and how they train. We were here before john sugrue took over saying the same stuff and suddenly we were div 2. I could name 5 or 6 players capable of playing Co football  who were not in there. Some declined which I'd be annoyed about and some were not asked. That's down to management not asking or making it attractive for them. This comes down to asking x why he won't come in and if x says its cos of work then we tell him that it'll be sorted out if x says its to do with finance then we get that sorted. Transport?? No problem it's sorted. Same for hurlers get the best people in and take away any excuse they might have for declining. I heard of a player being locked out of a meeting for being seconds late after travelling a long distance  for training. That auld stuff has to stop. Put the players first give them the best training the best plan and tactics and I bet a pound to a penny we'd fly div 4 and be strong in Tailteann Cup next year

I disagree with almost all of this. I can accept that Sugrue might, and I stress might, have got us out of Division 4, but not any further. The only way we could have stopped Down would be to build a wall. We just don't have the pace or power.

The local Championship will be starting soon and by God will you see some floury spuds then. This County is set up to fail

[Aristo 60]

floury spuds?

[on the hop]

https://twitter.com/noplanbgaa/status/1673324583292731393?s=48&t=eo8IWOjUnivmojLMPVblVw

Some of the defending was extremely poor even allowing for the defensive set up. The goal from the kickout was dreadful

[Joeythelips]

https://twitter.com/noplanbgaa/status/1673324583292731393?s=48&t=eo8IWOjUnivmojLMPVblVw

Some of the defending was extremely poor even allowing for the defensive set up. The goal from the kickout was dreadful

I get people may say our players are not quick or lack physique or not great skills set but that goal was after 30 odd seconds into a knockout championship game against a team from Division 3 and while its a lovely move and finish etc, from a defensive point of view its an embarrassment, lets be honest. That screams a side badly prepared team to me, it looked like a Junior team playing a Senior team to be frank. The fact Laois beat Fermanagh and Limerick now looks like it was down to the players rather than anything management contributed, this shows we have some good players and getting in a decent management team could turn them around. Our lads deserve this as a minimum.

[High Fielder]

You can't have it both ways Joey. If the players manufactured the wins, then surely they should take responsibility for the losses? Or is it just the losses that Billy has responsibility for? By the way, and lest we forget, Billy is assisted by Chris Conway, whose reputation for tactics and matchplay has been well received in the past. Surely he's not just standing idly by and allowing Billy to go full kamikaze?

The clips provided by OTH are fairly damning. There were enough Laois players in place to stop the onslaught. They just couldn't, sadly.

What happens next by the way? Do we sit around twiddling our thumbs while the CB decide Billy's fate? Do we wait another 2 or 3 months to get someone in? Groundhog Day over and over and another kick for touch. What a mess

[Joeythelips]

You can't have it both ways Joey. If the players manufactured the wins, then surely they should take responsibility for the losses? Or is it just the losses that Billy has responsibility for? By the way, and lest we forget, Billy is assisted by Chris Conway, whose reputation for tactics and matchplay has been well received in the past. Surely he's not just standing idly by and allowing Billy to go full kamikaze?

The clips provided by OTH are fairly damning. There were enough Laois players in place to stop the onslaught. They just couldn't, sadly.

What happens next by the way? Do we sit around twiddling our thumbs while the CB decide Billy's fate? Do we wait another 2 or 3 months to get someone in? Groundhog Day over and over and another kick for touch. What a mess

Im saying the evidence in front of us now indicates the wins were as a result of the players in spite of management input and not as a result of it. They were still badly prepared.

My take is if you but a top manager in charge of that Laois team they would have given Down a proper game. But put our management team in charge of a top team and they will finish the season empty handed as they are not up to the task of preparing a team adequately for modern day football in my opinion.

You also can't have it both ways, saying Laois players are not fit and lack pace etc, then why set a team up for that to be exposed or do current management not see this? Surely that screams poor management? It does to me.