Tailteann Cup 2023

[The Boy Wonder]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2020/0201/1112404-laois-make-impressive-statement-with-win-over-armagh/

Looking back to 2020 our last decent win was the opening Division 2 game versus Armagh. In the meantime we lost John O'Loughlin, a great servant to Laois, and Ross Munnelly who was at the end of a great career at that stage. Twelve of that panel are still involved so we cannot blame player turnover for our current situation. Armagh was now a Division 1 team and in All-Ireland quarter-finals while we're at our lowest ebb in living memory – so what has happened since 01-Feb-2020 ?

I read an article in today's Sindo about former Clare manager, Colm Collins. Clare were a Division 4 team when Collins was appointed and at his first meeting with the players he made them very aware that Clare football was punching unacceptably below its weight. This is where Laois are now. Let's look and learn at what Colm Collins achieved with Clare in his 10-year stint.

I've been watching Laois football since the early 70's – Johnny Lawlor was our star forward in those days !  In the decade since we've produced top class footballers and until the last couple of years we were always a proud footballing county.

To my mind there are 3 things that contribute to our current situation
1.    Either we are not producing the talent any more or our talent is not nurtured properly
2.   The change in the nature of the game – we've not mastered the possession football game
3.   Lack of vision and ambition in the county

I gather that the Laois SFC format does not help but, living in Dublin, I don't know. However, we're reached 2 Under-20 Leinster Finals in recent years so there is obviously some talent in the county.
There is no point in any sour grapes with Billy Sheehan and I certainly would not criticise the players – I had great sympathy for them yesterday as they gave their all. It's was always a long shot but we will all wonder how we might have performed with a better gameplan.

[on the hop]

On the game itself , it was a hard watch in there today.  There have been issues all year and even further back in relation to mobility and pace in the team, the defensive middle in particular. At times we seemed to go heavily defensive this year , even deploying Timmons as a sweeper. This had varying degrees of success , one in particular was the win in Sligo on a very heavy pitch. In hindsight the slower pace probably suited us at the time. For a variety of reasons we moved from rather than adapted this strategy possibly to add a bit more to the attack which struggled when isolated. There were worries going into today, a pacey looking down team were going to cause us problems, the lack of pace in some of the forward positions especially against attacking defenders, the concession of multiple chances per game and whether the consecutive games had taken its toll. Hopefully we weren't going to risk too many players that weren't fully fit, Croke park is not the place to take that chance. Even with this in mind , having conceded a record score against Dublin at home you would have hoped we had learned enough not to allow ourselves to be over ran by a down team that play a similar type of game. Keep it tight and competitive and see where it goes.

Well that illusion was shattered very quickly , from a lineball in the first minutes in the furthest corner of the pitch from our goal where we could have pinned them in , we conceded ground and let them unopposed go straight up the pitch into our middle and straight through on goals. No hits , no tackles , no blocks ,just a simple pace move. After that it was rinse and repeat , pop ball into space and multiple runners ahead of our players coming at angles. Nothing outrageous, just well executed give and go, pass and move. In fairness down had a bit of luck and displayed a high level of perfection with their passing and shooting but it was woeful on our part. Players running with their backs to the play , getting dragged out of the area in front of the goals to allow their runners to move into. Down must have been wondering are Laois that naive ? Are they really gone man to man ? The fact that they carved us open with our whole team at times inside the forty without any engagement in terms of a tackle was galling. I felt so sorry for the players at times especially in defense where there was no cover, imagine been one on one with a forward with half the pitch to cover. In the end a little spurt took the trauma off the score line. For the second time this year we conceded 40 points in a game and in both games it could easily have been more. Every weakness once again has been ruthlessly exposed, and this time its in a secondary competition against a team in a division above us. Maybe this down team will go and win the competition and establish itself as a great team but we conceded 8 goals in Croke park, it feels as bleak as that. I am sure lots will play out this week but I can't see how Sheehan can survive this.

The senior team is the flag ship team in the county , which attracts sponsorship, ambition and if going well interest. What's happening at the moment can't continue to become the norm. It will reach a point where it can't be retrieved.

[mcwregor]

Replacing Billy Sheehan will not improve our fortunes. We are simply miles off the pace. We are going to lose players now too which will weaken us further.

We need a 10 year plan for football and hurling in the county and we need it now!

Trouble is who is going to firstly come up with the plan and who is going to implement it??

We probably have better people in laois than Michael Duignan but is there anyone willing to step up and do it?
It wouldnt be easy but if we could just find a really ambitious, intelligent and driven Chairperson. He/She should be able to pull like minded people into positions to help drive the thing forward.

Like many posts on here it has to start at grass roots from the bottom up.

[High Fielder]

Long term we need a complete overhaul of everything we do. In the short term we need to dredge the county of all available talent and turn them into a team that can cope with the demands of modern day football. We can disagree all we want about Billy, the standard of club football, the CB or whatever. Fact is that yesterday is not acceptable

[BrotherMore6592]

Time for Laois to close the gates and let the cows out to graze

[Zooming around]

Trouble is who is going to firstly come up with the plan and who is going to implement it??

Part one is no problem. Any amount of lads could (and have) done that.
Based on the past the answer to part two is "Nobody".

[Joeythelips]

Long term we need a complete overhaul of everything we do. In the short term we need to dredge the county of all available talent and turn them into a team that can cope with the demands of modern day football. We can disagree all we want about Billy, the standard of club football, the CB or whatever. Fact is that yesterday is not acceptable

Exactly this, whatever the reasons yesterday was unacceptable. All involved will be linked with that shameful result, I feel sorry for the players as there have had to put in so much time and effort for that end result, its up there with the hurlers conceding 10-20 to the Cork hurlers in 2011. Utter humiliation.

I know people on here are critical of the players but Im sure plenty on here have trained under coaches who were simply not up to the task and we have to say Billy Sheehan clearly is not. Im not saying Laois would start winning trophies under a John Sugrue type coach (someone who has shown he can prepare a team for championship) but at least they will be a best prepared as possible in terms of fitness, planning, tactics etc when they go into battle. This has to be priority number 1.

[clonadmad]

Replacing Billy Sheehan will not improve our fortunes. We are simply miles off the pace. We are going to lose players now too which will weaken us further.

We need a 10 year plan for football and hurling in the county and we need it now!

Trouble is who is going to firstly come up with the plan and who is going to implement it??

We probably have better people in laois than Michael Duignan but is there anyone willing to step up and do it?
It wouldnt be easy but if we could just find a really ambitious, intelligent and driven Chairperson. He/She should be able to pull like minded people into positions to help drive the thing forward.

Like many posts on here it has to start at grass roots from the bottom up.

We don't need another effing plan

We've had 3 in the past 7 years and very little of any of them have been implemented

It's action and implementation is what's needed

Except all we will get is apathy

[clonadmad]

I know where the rant above is coming from.

But (Dublin aside) football is a rural game. Let the city folk do what city folk do. If you've 1-2 of the willing to work for it like the country boys, it's a bonus. A welcome bonus. But the throbbing heart of Gaelic Games isn't among hundreds of chimney pots.

This doesn't make any sense or relevance to Laois

Are you trying to make out Portlaoise is a City ?

That we shouldn't put resources into it because of its population size ?

When there are no issues in the likes of Killarney Tralee Newbridge Naas Thurles Kilkenny etc

[High Fielder]

There has to be a big shake up now, but just of the management of our senior football team, but of the County Board. There must be a root and branch shake up. If not, beatings like this will become commonplace. Our county board has failed us. It cannot continue as it is currently structured.

+1. Should have happened years ago. It's too late now when we're in this much sh1t

[Laois Rising]

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 ability.   

[High Fielder]

Excellent post LR. It was that obvious, sadly

[thegreeenandgold]

Great to win
Fair play to players
But Limerick butchered 5/6 goal chances

Down didn't butcher 5/6 Goal Chances
When lads were spouting on about Limerick game
In my time Billy possibly has presided over 2/3 of the worst results of all time. 

[High Fielder]

He's in the wrong place at the wrong time. The decline has been years in the making

[thegreeenandgold]

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