I think it was just a case of what has been happening at underage level for a few years now finally coming through at senior level.
The majority of Laois' main players are entering their 30's and will be playing division 4 next year. The majority of Kildare's main players are in their early to mid-20's and will be playing division 1 next year. It's two counties on different trajectories really.
We've had the upper hand against Laois for a while at underage level and when the likes of Munnelly, Begley, O'Loughlin etc start to retire I'm not sure Laois fans know who's going to replace them. The one thing you would have expected though is that they'd have a been a bit more organised and management would have made changes to try and counter what was working so well for Kildare.
Laois took a couple of short kickouts into the wind early on but once we started to push up on them they had no answer or backup plan to fall back on. Feely looked to win as many Laois kickouts as he did Kildare ones. Other than dropping it in long to Kingston there wasn't a whole lot of inventiveness in their forward play, a lot of credit to our half forward line and defenders though for putting the Laois forwards under so much pressure and creating a lot of turnovers as well.
It was good to have Brophy on the bench as an option if needed, on one hand it would have been nice to see him get a run out but on the other it was good that we never really needed him to come on to see what sort of impact he could have. He'll be back almost a month by the time the Meath game comes around so it'd be a bit of shock not to see him feature at some stage there I think.
Overall a very enjoyable day out - defended very well bar one mistake right at the start and ran up a nice total with a good spread of players scoring.
Ourselves and Meath will certainly be in a better position to take on Dublin than previous years, not sure about the likes of Laois, Offaly, Wexford etc.
Replying To if_in_doubt: "I think it was just a case of what has been happening at underage level for a few years now finally coming through at senior level.
The majority of Laois' main players are entering their 30's and will be playing division 4 next year. The majority of Kildare's main players are in their early to mid-20's and will be playing division 1 next year. It's two counties on different trajectories really.
We've had the upper hand against Laois for a while at underage level and when the likes of Munnelly, Begley, O'Loughlin etc start to retire I'm not sure Laois fans know who's going to replace them. The one thing you would have expected though is that they'd have a been a bit more organised and management would have made changes to try and counter what was working so well for Kildare.
Laois took a couple of short kickouts into the wind early on but once we started to push up on them they had no answer or backup plan to fall back on. Feely looked to win as many Laois kickouts as he did Kildare ones. Other than dropping it in long to Kingston there wasn't a whole lot of inventiveness in their forward play, a lot of credit to our half forward line and defenders though for putting the Laois forwards under so much pressure and creating a lot of turnovers as well.
It was good to have Brophy on the bench as an option if needed, on one hand it would have been nice to see him get a run out but on the other it was good that we never really needed him to come on to see what sort of impact he could have. He'll be back almost a month by the time the Meath game comes around so it'd be a bit of shock not to see him feature at some stage there I think.
Overall a very enjoyable day out - defended very well bar one mistake right at the start and ran up a nice total with a good spread of players scoring.
Ourselves and Meath will certainly be in a better position to take on Dublin than previous years, not sure about the likes of Laois, Offaly, Wexford etc."
Not nit picking but I think JOL is only 24 or 25 so a few more years in him yet.