Sheehan questions GAA scheduling but insists Laois will be ready for Dublin challenge

Laois take on Dublin in the O'Byrne Cup final on Saturday and it will be their fifth game in 14 days. When you take into account that the GAA don't allow Inter County teams to play games before January 1, it seems a bit mad that they then go and cram all these games into such a short timeframe.

While Laois manager Billy Sheehan won't be using it as a crutch, he makes the point that when it comes to player welfare, the GAA's thinking doesn't add up.

"There's a game on now in three or four days," Sheehan commented to RTE after they beat Kildare on Wednesday night. "The most important thing is we assess things. The GAA are on about burnout. We aren't allowed play a game until the 1st of January and now they've given us five games in 14 days, which I think is very hard on players. But we're not going to be ones to make excuses. We'll be there on Saturday and we'll be ready to go."

With a Division three league opener against Louth eight days later, Laois are sure to have one eye on that when it comes to team selection too. The O'Byrne cup is a competition there to be won and Laois will absolutely be going to win it, but at the end of the day, the league and championship trump any pre-season competition.

Regardless of how Saturday goes, there are plenty of green shoots when it comes to Laois football so far in 2022. They were hammered by 15 points away to Wexford in the opening game before showing great character and belief in what they are doing to beat both Meath and Wicklow by six points.

That led them to a semi final last Wednesday night with Kildare and after a pulsating 70 minutes of high intensity football, they got a draw. While extra time was announced over the PA system in Carlow, that didn't materialise and the game went straight to penalties.

Penalty shootout drama as Laois defeat Kildare and advance to O'Byrne Cup final

Leinster GAA O'Byrne Cup Semi Final

While Sheehan was probably happy that there wasn't 20 more minutes of extra time, he doesn't agree that penalties is a good way to decide a game.

"I know people will say we won but we didn't win. We got a draw. To be honest with you, I don't think it's a skill in the game. I'd rather if people took frees off their hands," Sheehan told RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland.

"It is going down the soccer route. I'd rather if there was even frees from a certain distance or just on the 45, or whatever. I don't think penalties is a way to decide a Gaelic football game.

"Ah, but we didn't win. That's the fact. We drew the game. I know people will say we won but we didn't win. We got a draw. Probably, at the end, we were hanging on."

It has been a big turnaround from that outing in Wexford on the opening day of the O'Byrne Cup and with the league now in sight, the former Laois player is happy with the repsonse and application that his squad has shown. 

So far, they have got game time into 34 different players and with more still to feature due to injury, Laois are not in a bad place.

"The boys' attitude is very good and that's all I can ask for as a manager."

"The first day we're still learning from and I'm still learning from. That day was an unacceptable performance but it was unacceptable from me as well. I'm the manager of the team, I coach the team and the way I set up the team was wrong. I take the blame and not the players and it's my job to try and improve things.

"As I say, it's the O'Byrne Cup. You want to go out and win games. Everyone says it's a learning curve but when you're on the pitch, whatever it is, challenge game or training session, you've got to have that winning element.

"Unfortunately, the first day, we had a very, very bad day out. We've improved a small bit since."

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