https://twitter.com/tomasoruanaidh/status/1802079737780863232?s=46
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That Clare team were blue chippers and aren’t comparable to Offaly or Dublin to me. It was only a few times, but they gutted some good teams.
You could come across a proper Joe Mc team some day soon, there is savage work being put in. There is less between Wexford, Offaly, Laois and lower ranked a Munster teams than you think. Laois threw their hat at it but threatened and a placeholder offaly team showed up okay
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Whatever about Offaly, Wexford are miles ahead of Laois. They beat them by 12 points in Portlaoise this afternoon at half throttle.
Today, yes. But…The Laois lads were about a quarter throttle if it was the week that was said. I’d be for exposing these teams to games against the top Leinster teams. The big Laois towns are expanding hugely and I think they’ll win a big one before Wexford do possibly to be honest.
What’s the big one that you think Laois are going to win before Wexford?
A big one???
What a Lotto or Euro Millions?
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Serious athletes in Portlaoise and Portarlington now, just need to be directed the right way. Wexford ain’t winning anything any time soon.
Wexford beat Laois by 27 points, 6-21 to 0-12 the last time they played them before today in the championship in 2022.
Do they even hurl in Portarlington? Don’t ever recall a hurler from there.
They have @Batigol now sure.
In fairness by my reckoning it’s the first year since the round robin format was introduced that at least one of the Joe Mc teams hasn’t been bet by 20+ points. Progress of sorts.
And Limerick would do the same to Wexford if they fancied it, neither team would be mapped in a big game. I’m talking about down the road here.
Teams like Offaly and Laois have to start somewhere and get exposure like that today. Must say some of the throwing of the ball was mental tonight in OMP. Rule is there and not being used.
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Were Wexford not rescued by Chin against Antrim. There’s less between all of these than you think.
Only underage hurling up to minor in Portarlington. No adult teams.
It happened in 2019, Laois beat Dublin.
The big thing for any weaker county is to not discard and players from weaker clubs underage with development squads, the temptation is to go with bigger clubs, but nearly needs to be development squads within development squads.
You are not making any sense now. Your argument about the respective merits of Wexford and Laois has now just reverted to aren’t this current Limerick team just great.
Portlaoise were very strong in the 1980’s when they had the likes of John Taylor, Pat Critchley, Cheddar Plunkett and a few others. They’ve contributed very little to Laois hurling before or since. The other decent sized towns in Laois contribute very little. The dominant clubs in Laois are rural clubs like Camross, Clough/Ballacolla.
The towns in Wexford are quite dominant now. Gorey whose population has exploded in last 20 years won their first Wexford Senior championship in 2018 and won their second last year. The Rapps in Enniscorthy won their first senior championship in 2021 since 1978.
Clubs like St Martins, Shelmaliers just outside Wexford town have both won a number of Wexford Senior championships in last decade.
Clubs in expanding Wexford towns are winning now but the tradition was always there anyway. Laois towns don’t have that tradition.
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I would see big scope for improvement in the larger towns in the coming years which is the basis for what I am predicting. There is a lot going on.
It rarely if ever happens though in hurling in towns without a tradition. Tramore in Waterford would be a classic case in point. I don’t think Tramore has ever produced an inter-county hurler. In the time I’m living in Waterford, Tramore seem to do quite well at underage level up until about U14 and then they all just seem to disappear or fall away.
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They used to have great Waltzers in Tramore years ago.
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