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Replying To carlowman: "Well done Carlow hurlers ! A very tricky assignment against Down on Saturday in NCP. Playing against a strongish wind in the first half we relied on Marty from frees. Donagh Murphy and Treacy posed a few challenges in the forwards. Our defence was strengthened for the 2nd half by Paul Doyle entering and Paddy Boland added a new dimension in our forwards. This was far from easy with the constant downpour in the second half making it really tough for the players. A good win but tougher assignments ahead with Wexford in Wexford next up. Its going to be tough to stay up in Div 1B. One game at a time." I heard the hurlers might be playing Kilkenny this week in a challenge match? Don't actually know if that's confirmed or not yet but both teams are idle this weekend. Great game to get if it's on. Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1769 - 27/01/2026 16:07:52 2653582 Link
Replying To Onion Breath: "I heard the hurlers might be playing Kilkenny this week in a challenge match? Don't actually know if that's confirmed or not yet but both teams are idle this weekend. Great game to get if it's on." I hadn't hear that news, but if correct, it would be good to keep the lads ticking over, esp with a weeks break to the Wexford game. Training etc at this time of the year / weather must be awful to organise / tog out for. A practise game against the likes of KK would be worth a few sessions in the training field. Bainisteoir (National) - Posts: 602 - 28/01/2026 14:00:57 2653741 Link
Sean Gannon appointed new manager of Athy. I didn't see that coming. Best of luck to him. Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1769 - 28/01/2026 14:08:10 2653743 Link
Replying To Onion Breath: "Sean Gannon appointed new manager of Athy. I didn't see that coming. Best of luck to him." From EO junior Bs to Athy. Big step up that. CarlowJuniorB (Clare) - Posts: 92 - 28/01/2026 16:52:46 2653789 Link
Replying To CarlowJuniorB: "From EO junior Bs to Athy. Big step up that." It's a huge step but he's a smart guy and no doubt he put he put an impressive presentation together showing his different experiences. Also shows how increasingly Carlow coaches are highly thought of. Turlo and Simon managing Portlaoise, Barry Hayes led Baltinglass to last year's Wicklow Championship and Joe led Naas to was it 3 or 4 consecutive Kildare championships. They're all big clubs. Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1769 - 28/01/2026 22:16:05 2653833 Link
As are Athy. Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1769 - 28/01/2026 22:17:42 2653834 Link
Replying To Onion Breath: "It's a huge step but he's a smart guy and no doubt he put he put an impressive presentation together showing his different experiences. Also shows how increasingly Carlow coaches are highly thought of. Turlo and Simon managing Portlaoise, Barry Hayes led Baltinglass to last year's Wicklow Championship and Joe led Naas to was it 3 or 4 consecutive Kildare championships. They're all big clubs." Athy have a 'good one ' in Sean Gannon. A great player for club and county. Without doubt one of the most influential players of the last 50 years. His incisive runs and passing plus scores helped Eire Og win games that they otherwise would have struggled in. Taking on Athy is a huge move but at this stage he has the experience and know how to bring Athy to the next level. Best wishes to Sean ! carlowman (Carlow) - Posts: 1890 - 29/01/2026 14:56:14 2653923 Link
Replying To carlowman: "Athy have a 'good one ' in Sean Gannon. A great player for club and county. Without doubt one of the most influential players of the last 50 years. His incisive runs and passing plus scores helped Eire Og win games that they otherwise would have struggled in. Taking on Athy is a huge move but at this stage he has the experience and know how to bring Athy to the next level. Best wishes to Sean !" Brilliant player. I. Think the most consistent player i have seen in 2a carlow jersey, year in year out. Bimb (Carlow) - Posts: 578 - 29/01/2026 18:18:57 2653955 Link
Replying To Onion Breath: "I heard the hurlers might be playing Kilkenny this week in a challenge match? Don't actually know if that's confirmed or not yet but both teams are idle this weekend. Great game to get if it's on." They played tonight. I wasn't at it but I was talking to someone who was and they beat a decent Kilkenny team 1-19 to carlow 1-20. Also heard Carlow rested 4/5 also Mouse,Kevin Mc and few others. Great result!! Ceatharlach7000 (Carlow) - Posts: 25 - 29/01/2026 21:42:10 2653965 Link
Replying To carlowman: "Athy have a 'good one ' in Sean Gannon. A great player for club and county. Without doubt one of the most influential players of the last 50 years. His incisive runs and passing plus scores helped Eire Og win games that they otherwise would have struggled in. Taking on Athy is a huge move but at this stage he has the experience and know how to bring Athy to the next level. Best wishes to Sean !" Hi Sean, well done to you. CARPS (Carlow) - Posts: 1027 - 30/01/2026 09:09:47 2653990 Link
Replying To Ceatharlach7000: "They played tonight. I wasn't at it but I was talking to someone who was and they beat a decent Kilkenny team 1-19 to carlow 1-20. Also heard Carlow rested 4/5 also Mouse,Kevin Mc and few others. Great result!!" Ahh pity I had heard it would be played this weekend Saturday or Sunday I assumed. I was hoping to get to see it even though I know they wanted to keep it quiet / behind closed doors. Anyway that's a great game to get and good prep for Wexford next weekend. Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1769 - 30/01/2026 10:43:49 2654017 Link
What state is the pitch in for tomorrow? We got a battering of rain these last few days so can't be in a great state. CarlowJuniorB (Clare) - Posts: 92 - 30/01/2026 22:04:16 2654101 Link
Replying To CarlowJuniorB: "What state is the pitch in for tomorrow? We got a battering of rain these last few days so can't be in a great state." There was a pitch inspection this morning & we are good to go. Hopefully we get a big crowd tonight as it's a very important game in the promotion battle. Win tonight & we have a great chance of going up even though I wouldn't take any game for granted in Div 4. Heard the hurlers were good on Thursday night even resting 5/6 of our top men. Kilkenny had a decent team out so that argurs well for the season. Wexford next weekend is a massive game & hopefully have a few more lads back carlo (Carlow) - Posts: 301 - 31/01/2026 14:16:58 2654142 Link
Team named for tonight is the same one as was named for the Antrim game but I expect we'll see the same changes made to the starting line up as happened last week. I'd like to see choo choo and John Murphy involved tonight. Two players who would add a lot if they're available especially in what will be very heavy conditions. Pitch looked magnificent for the time of year before the hurling match v Down last weekend. I felt sorry for the ground staff who put so much work into the pitch when it closed for the winter eg the goal mouths were like a snooker table and then to see it starting to cut up in the first game but it held up well enough and is far better than most county grounds. It's a great sod and none of our neighbours have a pitch like it. Hopefully tonight won't damage it too much there's a long year ahead. The back up ground nominated for tonight was the main pitch in SETU but that's unplayable apparently so just as well the county grounds are in good shape despite all the rain. I said when the fixtures came out I'd take two draws in our first two games so we're already ahead of my expectations. After the win last weekend I'd nearly be disappointed if we drew tonight as the prize for winning is outright lead in the division and on paper a lot of winnable games ahead. A win tonight would leave us with margin for one error whereas a draw or defeat needless to say would leave us going into every remaining game as must win. Hard to know what Wicklow will be like but we rarely put them away even when on top so it'll probably go down to the last 5-10 minutes. With their keeper Jackson capable of landing frees from anywhere they'll definitely be hard to get clear ahead of no matter how well we play, he's deadly and will keep their scoreboard ticking over. We have a strong bench so I'm hoping we can win it with maybe 2-3 points to spare. Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1769 - 31/01/2026 15:26:45 2654153 Link
By far the best team but neaely kicked it away..... Played some very good footvall...... Joe really making his mark Bimb (Carlow) - Posts: 578 - 31/01/2026 20:22:29 2654192 Link
Not even going to analyze it. All I will say is it was amazing. Well done to the management and the players. I think this team is potentially better than the 2017/2018 group. It's less reliant on a few key players. We could have some very interesting days ahead. CARPS (Carlow) - Posts: 1027 - 31/01/2026 20:33:31 2654194 Link
Replying To CARPS: "Not even going to analyze it. All I will say is it was amazing. Well done to the management and the players. I think this team is potentially better than the 2017/2018 group. It's less reliant on a few key players. We could have some very interesting days ahead." Game has changed beyond recigntion but there are great signs with this team Bimb (Carlow) - Posts: 578 - 31/01/2026 21:42:53 2654211 Link
Carlow winning midfield is something new. Won a lot of ball around the middle.Should have won by lot more. Two goals we concided I thought were soft.Work rate really impressive. All forwards scoring is a good sign. Good to have a week off now. Calm things down and work on taking more of the chances they create. A week ago you'd have taken two points from first two games. It's four now. Well done to all panel and backroom team. Brendandoyle (Carlow) - Posts: 8 - 31/01/2026 21:48:19 2654213 Link
Tonight's game was my first game to attend since the new york game in 23? I hadn't missed a championship game since the mid 80s until then and rarely missed a league game. After the highs of 17 and 18 where we were genuinely competitive it was hard watching poorly prepared teams with no plan. I said I'd go tonight and have a look and I'm glad I did. It wasn't a perfect performance we made mistakes and were a bit inconsistent infront of goals but we were well set up with a clear way of playing, it's years since that was the case. We are good once we get to set our defence and mccarron has great variety on his kickouts which gives us a platform to attack. We held our own in midfield and did well off the wicklow kick when they went long. Our work rate was very good both with and without the ball. We did well on short kickouts but I feel if a team really pressed that we could be in bother as we are running everything out. Might be an idea to drop a player on the opposite side so we can do a quick switch by foot to the other side so we can beat that press. On wicklows kickout I felt we could have cut out that short kickout Completely and forced them long all the time. It felt like we were doing well off those long ones maybe I'm wrong on that. Overall things are very positive two wins from two with a team that looks very motivated. Even if we were to slip up now we have the head to head on wicklow and Antrim. But my feeling is we can win all our games. Great crowd there tonight too Barrowsider (Carlow) - Posts: 1737 - 31/01/2026 21:59:25 2654216 Link
Very positive and together team. Joe is doing what we all suspected he could. Brilliant to see. And how good was it to see queues of people waiting see match. It's been a long time since saw that. Hopefully we can keep this going now. Brilliant start. DolmenDave (Carlow) - Posts: 57 - 31/01/2026 22:06:38 2654217 Link