Laois senior hurlers 2026

[Laois man]

That was some shit show.

[SCFC]

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.

[Genocide Organ]

Bad, bad day. For all our fancy ball drills before the game, Carlow's handling was far better, and they were well able to take on their man too. Things only happened in the forwards for us when Picky came on at half-time, and defensively - three of those goals were poor and we gave away too many frees. Now, I know there were plenty of them on the soft - or even mysterious - side, but still, after we got level, Carlow pointed three placed balls in a row to completely take the wind out of our sails. Not sure how Mossy stayed on, either...

I know we've been hurling at a low level, but we have seriously regressed. Hard to see a trip to Croker this year.

[Verbal]

That was very poor.
I only got to watch it on Clubber.

The ref could have given many more frees against us.
Handling & speed of touch was awful.
Tackling was very untidy.

You can plan to go with something in the championship (Mullaney as a forward). It's either a justified idea or not.
35 minutes shouldn't change that.
Very disheartening

[Smallballbigballs]

They horsed us out of it. Plain and simple.

[Joeythelips]

Would have to agree, Carlow looked bigger and stronger than Laois

They horsed us out of it. Plain and simple.

[Laois man]

Question. Is there a semi final in the Joe mcdonagh or is it just top 2 to the final?

[The Boy Wonder]

Top 2 in final this year. From 2027 2nd & 3rd will play semi-final.

[Laoisred]

A poor night for sure. 4 man half forward line didnt work at all especially with breeze in first half. A few lads seemed unsure of the plan.
Would have swapped Kelly and Dooley. Both out of the game. Corby quiet. Looked shaky at the back after Cleere went off. Fennell steadied the ship at 6 and did well on Kavangh. But wth 50 yards between full back line and half back line every time they ran at us they looked like scoring. Conway had hands full on Nolan  but Carlow had other hard runners on the day and we couldn't live with it.
Picky made a big difference when he came on. Dunne looked lively when he came on too apart for stray pass when we had a chance of goal. Would look like a starter to me. Need a reaction from the group the next day but Antrim need something too. Season defining match.

[Laois Rising]

I know after the Dublin second team played the Laois first team in a challenge match about a month ago they were shocked by how far back Laois had regressed. Both psychically and skill wise they easily outperformed us and Laois were lucky to only lose that game by about four points. A month on and those failings still there. If you are going to lose a game in Joe McD its best lose the first day out. Hopefully it will act as a wake up call and management identify what changes both tactically and in personnel that need to be made. It is knock-out hurling from here on in. 

[SpeculativeEffort]

It's shocking to say that in our last 4 cship matches (2 vs Carlow and 2 vs Kildare) we have managed 1 draw and 3 losses by an average of 10 points (11,10,9 pts).

[redsetanta]

Very disappointing result alright. Would we be good enough if we can recover and beat Antrim and maybe meet Carlow again in the final?

Having lost 2 finals in a row it would be hard to take losing a third.

Hopefully there is a response and we get over Antrim and gain a bit of momentum. The underdog tag sits better with us anyhow.

[ardtole]

Laois are still 2nd favs to win the Joe McDonagh with both PP and Boylesports.

[G@@]

It's shocking to say that in our last 4 cship matches (2 vs Carlow and 2 vs Kildare) we have managed 1 draw and 3 losses by an average of 10 points (11,10,9 pts).

It's an absolutely shocking statistic. Laois are going the path of Offaly in the latter part of the 2010s decade. We are going to have a stint in the Christy Ring Cup yet.

I don't like criticising anyone, but I think Tommy Fitz is way out of his depth at the helm of Laois. The writing was on the wall last year after taking two bad beatings from Kildare. Tommy was only supposed to fill the gap left by the unfortunate circumstances that prompted Darren Gleeson to withdraw from the role. Laois County Board obviously don't give two hoots about the county hurlers by leaving Tommy in the role - after last year's final loss to Kildare an experienced manager should have been sought.

Barring a miracle, Laois won't be in any JMD final this year and if we continue with the same game plan we brought to Carlow, we will be in a dogfight to survive JMD and not make the drop to Christy Ring for 2027. Well done the so-called brains in Laois, if we put as much effort in to doing things right as we put into absolutely embarrassing ourselves and making ourselves a laughing stock it would be energy far better spent.

[ardtole]

Antrim are 11/5 to beat Laois this weekend. Seems great value if things are as bad as suggested in Laois. Granted Antrim aren't going great either.