Momentum the aim for manager Stephen Duff as Laois Ladies get up and running in Division 3

Laois manager Stephen Duff was pleased to see his Laois Ladies side get off the mark in Division 3 of the National Football League, as they recorded a comprehensive win over Limerick on Sunday afternoon.

After the final whistle, the Laois manager said the result was exactly what his side had set out to achieve on their trip to Rathkeale. He also pointed out that the biggest challenge facing the team is maintaining their own performance levels rather than worrying about opponents.

“Oh yeah, delighted with the result. We said coming down today, we're in a battle with ourselves. We're fully confident in this division that if we perform, we win 80–90% of the games. We didn't perform the last two days, and we didn't win them; we didn't deserve to win them. We went out today in a position that we had to get a win, and we had to get a result, and if we could put a score up, we put a score up, and we got that opportunity today. The rest of the league is a battle with ourselves. Delighted to get the result, but there are definitely areas of improvement. That was probably a 6 out of 10 performance. So, definitely areas for us to improve,” he said.

Duff also made use of the league’s unlimited substitutions, allowing many members of his squad to see action, something he believes will be vital as the season progresses and championship approaches.

“There are four or five girls who haven't got a run. Anyone who's been there since December has probably got a run at this stage, which is nice. People who came back later and people who maybe started other games didn't get a run today. It's important we build our panel because we saw last year that we needed 20–25 players going into an All-Ireland Championship. We need to have a strong panel, and we want to hold on to everyone that we have,” he added.

Despite the comfortable margin of victory in the end, Duff acknowledged that Laois were not satisfied with how they began the game, noting that the sides were level early on and that his team’s decision-making in possession still needs refinement.

“There were definitely moments that we weren't happy about, especially in that first quarter. Second half, then, when the game opened up, we saw more opportunity for us to go wide and find space, and we got more goals because of it. We are confident that if we get players one-on-one, we can beat them because of our power, but for some strange reason, the girls love to go one versus four and try to burrow our way through. That's something we're working on. Other teams put up a better, stronger defence than that, and other teams pressed out on us and gave us more space. So look, we just have to react to what's in front of us, and we didn't react well in that first 20 minutes,” Duff said.

A key tactic that proved effective for Laois was their work on Limerick’s kick-outs, which directly led to two first-half goals. Duff said this is an area the team continues to analyse and develop, while also addressing defensive issues that had been exposed in their previous outing against Down.

“We always target teams' kick-outs in different ways. We had a feeling we could get some joy out of it today. We got some joy out of it in fits and bursts. I think we could be an awful lot better, loads to work on. We've lost the height of Jane and Anna, which is something, but still an awful lot to do. Keepers in ladies' football tend to have a big tell of where they're going to kick the ball, and we’re not clueing into that very quickly, so that's something we might go after next week.

“This week was very much about our attack and our defensive shape, which wasn't good against Down. We were running down bottlenecks and Down were able to get in past our defensive line very easily, so that was two things we wanted to improve on today, and I think we did in some areas, but still definitely more to improve on,” he said.

Attention now turns to their next fixture after a short break, with a trip to Ennis to face Clare on the horizon. While Clare have yet to win and conceded heavily to Down at the weekend, Duff stressed that Laois’ priority is raising their own standards following a slow start to the campaign.

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“No game is easy in this Division 3 and intermediate, it’s such a close, competitive division. A bit of momentum, like we saw last year, and it can carry you all the way to the end of the year. It's about getting it right at the right time. Look, we want to get out of Division 3. We want to be better than what we were in the last two weeks. For Laois in the past, it's not acceptable to lose to Down, but that's our level now, and we have to go and win those games. We didn't win those games, they were better than us. 

“We want to start getting Laois back to a place where that doesn't happen, and Fermanagh doesn't happen. It's just about building standards and what's acceptable for this group and what's not acceptable for this group. The turnover of players doesn't help, but it gets to the point where we have to hold ourselves accountable. That's our minimum level now; that must be our minimum level there today, and anything above that is what we're achieving, we don't dip below it again,” he concluded.