"You can, cut, copy and paste what I said last week, it's the exact same scenario" - Laois boss Mike Quirke

It was different opposition and a different week but the same problem for Mike Quirke and the Laois footballers on Sunday as their shooting boots deserted them and Kildare comfortably put them to the sword. It was a 13 point defeat in the end and Mike Quirke cut a frustrated figure as he rehashed the same failings in the aftermath of another defeat.

“Look, you can, cut, copy and paste what I said last week, it's the exact same scenario. It's the same game, the exact same thing we did against Cork.

“We were really happy with a pile of what we did but we just didn't reward ourselves by taking the scores we thought we deserved.

“They (Kildare) had 28 shots and scored 20, we had 26 shots and scored nine and you’re not going to win very many games if that’s the case and it’s been a recurring theme now in the last three games but particularly the last two against Cork and Kildare when we felt most other aspects of our game were pretty good.

“We had more attacks, more shots and defensively we could have possibly done a little better.”

Laois played their best football in the opening half but still went in six points down at half time thanks in no small part to a sucker punch of a goal five minutes before the interval.

“We should have gone in at half time up a couple of points up, no problem, with the amount of chances we missed in the first half. Realistically, the chances we missed from good kickers, in good areas, under very little pressure, we should have been leading the game at half time.

“It's frustrating. We felt the performance was there. We had plenty of ball but we're not rewarding the play by getting scores that you want.”

Shooting has been a big problem but as Quirke explains, it's not from the lack of practicing.

“We’re doing it every night in training. Shooting is a huge part of what we do. We want to be very efficient in around that D. That’s what we wanted to pride ourselves on but whatever it is it’s not connecting right now.

“And it’s probably something we do more often than anything else in training but it’s not translating onto the scoreboard.

“Last week we had 26 shots and took a very low percentage of them and this week we had 25 shots and took a very low percentage of them.”

Laois will now travel to Newry and take on Down in a relegation playoff on Saturday week and while they will no doubt focus in on Down now, the Laois manager was adamant that if they don't improve their scoring return, the opposition are irrelevant.

“Who we’re playing is probably irrelevant right now. If you’re scoring 1-9 you’re not going to beat anybody. That’s not an inter-county score. You can’t win games with 1-9. It’s not as if we’re playing with 15 men behind the ball. You have to be getting to 18 or 19 points to try and win these games.

“If you have 25-26 shots, you should be getting to 18-19 points and we’re not doing that right now. But it's a funny thing.
“You can hot a purple patch and fellas put one over the bar and suddenly there's a bit of a flow to it.

“If you constantly doing things right, like we think we are, then you're giving yourself a better chance. You keep doing the right things in training. You keep focusing on being really efficient in around the D, you keep focusing on creating good, high percentage chances and ultimately fellas got to kick the ball over the bar.

“That's the bottom line. No matter what you do in training, you can't kick the ball over the bar for them. Eventually you have to trust that the work you are doing is going to turn things.”