GAA: Laois 3-6 Wicklow  0-8: A perfect day for championship football in Dr Cullen Park was a little spoiled by a flat, listless encounter between a clearly superior Laois and a Wicklow team that battled hard but couldn't make a match of it. Seán Moran reports.

Much was made of the fact that the winners outscored their opponents by only one, nine to eight, but as Wicklow manager John O'Leary admitted, when you score only points and three of the nine scores you concede are goals the statistic is less impressive.

Wicklow's cause wasn't helped by two of their players getting red cards in the final 15 minutes. Anthony Nolan got a second booking in the 55th minute, and centre back Colm Toomey got a straight dismissal in injury-time. Toomey will make the qualifiers in a month provided he doesn't receive more than a four-week suspension.

Laois manager Colm Browne was particularly happy given that his side had lost the Division Two league final to Kerry eight days previously. Having survived the initial championship outing, Browne and Laois must focus on a steeper challenge against Offaly, who defeated them in last year's Leinster championship.

"I think Offaly are the best team in Leinster," said Browne, "and they're going to present far stiffer opposition than Wicklow did today. It'll be a constant threat from Offaly all the way through.

"But we have progressed throughout the league and that game today will have brought us on, while Offaly haven't played yet. You can't beat championship games."

For O'Leary, the result hardly came as a surprise. His team has been wracked by the withdrawal or suspension of some of Wicklow's best performers last year. He will regroup for the qualifiers.

"I wouldn't be too critical about the team," he said. "We don't have great depth there at the moment. Five started championship for the first time and we'd only eight of last year's team. They got a lesson out there but they worked hard. I've no complaints. You play the hand you're dealt."

For a while that hand looked serviceable. In an unbelievably slow start to proceedings, it was Wicklow who made the running. By the end of the first quarter they led by three points to no score. Two of the scores came from under-21 Paddy Dalton at full forward, whose kicking was impressive and yielded 0-4.

Laois kicked wides and couldn't establish any rhythm as their hard-working opponents scrapped for possession and drove forward. Shane O'Neill wasted a goal chance by ploughing into defenders with a man free inside.

As nearly always happens in such encounters, it didn't take much for Wicklow's painstakingly acquired confidence to unravel.

After eking out the three-point lead, they had to watch it disappear. Laois had always looked like they were moving along in an artificially low gear. In the 20th minute they got off the mark with Darragh McEvoy ominously contenting himself with a fisted point - the impression being that he didn't feel he needed the goal that was on offer.

Within two minutes that assurance was justified when Laois worked the ball in from the right and David Brennan provided the final pass to Michael Lawlor and he took the goal. That gave the winners the lead for the first time and they weren't to be headed again.

Ian Fitzgerald nearly added a second moments later, only for Robert Hollingsworth in the Wicklow goal to expertly rob the ball in mid-solo.

The second wasn't too long delayed though, and in the 34th minute Beano McDonald sidestepped the cover and sidefooted the ball to net.

So at half-time the match was effectively over even though Laois's lead, 2-2 to 0-5, was modest enough.

Any lingering fantasy in the minds of Wicklow supporters evaporated three minutes after the break when Chris Conway was well placed by Lawlor and hammered a shot that the cover could only parry straight back into his arms. Showing a neat touch in confined circumstances, Conway soloed the ball and squeezed it in from almost the endline.

Wicklow gamely reduced the margin to five with 10 minutes to go, but there never looked the slightest prospect that the result was going to surprise an attendance of around 3,000, who at least had spent a pleasant afternoon in the sun.

LAOIS: F Byron; D Ryan (capt), T Kelly, P McDonald; D Conroy, K Fitzpatrick, D Brennan; N Garvan, P Clancy; I Fitzgerald (0-2, frees), D McEvoy (0-1), M Lawlor (1-0); B McDonald (1-1), G Ramsbottom (0-1), C Conway (1-1). Subs: G Kavanagh for Lawlor (70 mins); S Kelly for Clancy (72 mins).

WICKLOW: R Hollingsworth; S Cush, G Jameson, T Burke; B O hAnnaidh, C Toomey, B Daly; F Daly, B O'Donovan; A Foley, S O'Neill (0-2, one free), B Mernagh; A Nolan, P Dalton (0-4, three frees), J Behan (0-1). Subs: A Mooney for Jameson (47 mins); G Doran (0-1) for O'Neill (58 mins), O O hAnnaidh for Foley (69 mins).

Referee: G Kinneavy (Roscommon).