NHL REACTION - Rigney just happy to get the win
It wasn't pretty, but as far as Niall Rigney was concerned after Tuesday night's clash with Kildare, he was just glad to have picked up Laois' first points of the campaign.
Speaking afterwards the Portlaoise man admitted they couldn't afford to repeat that performance against Antrim this weekend, but was pleased to see the team win. "The performance wasn't great but we came here looking for two points and that's what we got, and we didn't pick up any injuries. We aim to target certain games, the Clare game, the Wexford game, the Antrim game, but certainly that won't be good enough to beat Antrim.
"I'm not going to be negative about it. I told the players the night before the game what we wanted and maybe I shouldn't have, maybe I should have just told them to go and get stuck in. We looked a little bit tired, we had a tough game her eon Sunday morning against Offaly, so maybe they were a bit heavy in the lega, but it's two points, that's the main thing."
With failing to impose themselves on the game, there were worrying aspects to the game for Rigney, and he admitted they will have to look at changing things this weekend. "We have to look at chaniging things to be honest. We have a few players out injured and we need to get everybody back, we have a few niggly injuries.
"We have to realise that performance certainly won't do against Antrim and beyond; Wexford are coming here in four weeks as well. We said before the game that if we get into a game where we don't hurl to our style of play we're going to fall into a battle with these lads, and that's exactly what we did and we've nobody to blame but ourselves. I wouldn't like anyone to think going away though that we're back to square one again. They're training very hard and they're after hurling a lot of games and we have a lot of games still to hurl, but again I'm happy we got the two points, I'm not particularly happy with the performance but I'd rather be in this position knowing what the lads are going to hear is basically that that performance won't do."
With Antrim next up, does the Portlaoise man feel this performance is a one-off? "We'll know on Sunday, we'll know what way the lads take it themselves, it is entirely up to them. That performance certainly won't beat Antrim, we set out to be competitive in the league and there are a few lads there tonight that will be disappointed wiht their performance, as I said after the Clare match. I'm not going to maek excuses, the lads know they were poor tonight and they don't need me to tell them, they'll realise that themselves. We're gradually building to where we want to go, and that's the main thing."
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Weather for Portlaoise
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
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