Laois slump past Wicklow to set up Dublin encounter

Laois 3-16 Wicklow 0-18

Not much here will concern the All-Ireland champions. Laois, clearly in possession of superior footballers, sloppily progressed to face Dublin on June 4th in Nowlan Park.

Laois were always in control of this Leinster football championship first round tie simply because of Wicklow’s inaccuracy. This covered all aspects of their attempts to counter-attack at pace along with shooting six first-half wides (three of which were frees - two by John McGrath and one from Rory Finn - in spitting distance of the posts).

Dublin will be unmoved by what Laois showed. It’s undeniable that they continue to produce powerful, highly skilled forwards with Evan O’Carroll clearly joining that category with his first score in the opening seconds.

Ross Munnelly, who hones in on the longest serving inter-county footballer, looks as sprightly as ever, hitting two smart points and a nicely weighted assist for John O'Loughlin to confirm Laois's dominance by the half hour when the midfielder made it 1-10 to 0-7.

The goal arrived after just eight minutes when full forward Gary Walsh was left in far too much space to solo then shoot low to the net.

Wicklow rallied before the turn with Dean Healy’s score reducing the deficit to five points.

The second-half performance by Johnny Magee’s men was truly impressive.

Until then it wasn’t much of a spectacle but Wicklow did seek to match the physicality of Laois men like O’Loughlin, who was regularly man-handled out the field, while it took Donie Kingston an hour before he got any joy out of fullback Paul McLoughlin.

It seemed set for a cake walk until the Laois defence made a string of errors which were ruthlessly punished by Paul Cunningham, John McGrath and Andy O’Loughlin.

This, momentarily, made it a one point tussle. O’Carroll pointed frees either side of a second Laois goal, from energetic substitute Ruairi O’Connor, to all but rule out an upset.

Or we presumed. Wicklow refused to let go as much as Laois lacked the ruthlessness they will need to avoid a terrible beating in Kilkenny next month.

Three more Wicklow scores - mostly off turnover possession - from Healy, Cunningham and Finn left a goal between them.

Then Finn showed a captain’s composure to land his sixth point from a free. Laois immediately, almost instinctively, hit back with Kingston pointing twice.

John Crowe responded for Wicklow. Next it was corner back Arran Murphy who arrived up the field to post a quality score. Two point game. Five minutes to play.

Kingston, yet again, steadied the ship with a free. The big man, who finished with 1-7, had the last say on affairs with a thunderous shot to the roof of Robert Lambert’s net as the seconds ticked away.

Unconvincingly Laois move on to face an unconcerned Dublin.

Laois: 1 G Brody; 4 P Cotter, 3 M Timmins, 2 S Attride; 5 D O'Connor,

6 D Strong, 7 G Dillon; 8 J O’Loughlin (0-1), 9 B Quigley; 10 N Donoher, 11 P Cahillane (0-1), 12 E O’Carroll (0-4, three frees); 13 R Munnelly (0-2), 14 G Walsh (1-1), 15 D Kingston (1-7, 0-3 frees).

Substitutions: 23 M Campion for N Donoher, R O’Connor (1-0) for R Munnelly (both half-time), 21 K Meaney for M Campion (47 mins), 20 A Farrell for G Dillon (55 mins), 26 E Keane for G Walsh (61 mins), 22 J Farrell for E O’Carroll (67 mins)

Wicklow: 1 R Lambert; 2 C Hyland, 3 P McLoughlin (0-1), 4 A Murphy (0-2); 6 D Healy (0-2), 7 S Kelly, 5 C Murphy; 8 R Finn (0-6, four frees, capt), 9 N Gaffney; 10 D Hayden (0-1), 11 J McGrath (0-2, one free), 12 M Kenny; 13 P Byrne (0-1), 14 P Cunningham (0-2, frees), 15 M Lennon. Substitutions: 21 A McLoughlin (0-1) for N Gaffney (half-time), 20 D Woods for M Kenny (40 mins), 22 P O'Connor for J McGrath (42 mins), 18 J Crowe (0-1) for C Murphy (49 mins), 25 S Thompson for P Byrne (56 mins), 23 G Allen for M Lennon (66 mins).

Referee: F Kelly (Longford).

Attendance: 4,575.