Laois 1-17 Down 1-12: For a team that fell prey to several misfortunes, Laois still ended up by far the happier of the teams at O'Moore Park, Portlaoise, yesterday. After frittering away the points in Navan last week, Mick O'Dwyer's side gave a far more controlled performance to secure their second win of the campaign.
It was a satisfactory end to a week that has seen some high-profile departures from the Laois panel with Donal Miller and Ian Fitzgerald both departing, unhappy at their lack of game time. Even yesterday experienced controversialist Mick Lawlor, just back on the panel, exhibited his unhappiness at being sent on and withdrawn in the space of half an hour by hurling his jersey to the ground on being replaced.
Down, as noted in frustration by manager Paddy O'Rourke, belied their 100 per cent start to the season by not hitting any sort of a stride until the match had drifted beyond them. But their second-half revival took the margin down to two before Laois impressively shifted gear and disappeared into the distance.
Both sides lost a player to double yellow cards in an encounter that wasn't nasty even if it was fairly foul-ridden. Daniel Hughes went first, in the 57th minute, removing Down's liveliest scoring threat. Then in injury-time Darren Rooney picked up his red card.
O'Dwyer was particularly happy with the display of his makeshift centrefield. Pádraig Clancy started but after shipping an early knock had to be replaced after two minutes, leaving Tom Kelly and a re-deployed Billy Sheehan to hold the middle. This they largely did by dint of work-rate and a subdued performance from Down's Dan Gordan but his partner Ambrose Rodgers made a number of driving runs through the centre. Nonetheless Kelly and Sheehan hovered a lot of ball and made good ground themselves when in possession.
Still distraction stalked Laois. Early in the second half Colm Kelly (St Joseph's), who had scored two points, injured his shoulder and had to be replaced. Paul Lawlor, like Kelly a late replacement, who came in because of a bereavement in Beano McDonald's family and had to be twice substituted under the blood rule but played on and did so effectively despite resembling an ice cream cone with his heavily bandaged head.
It was Lawlor who drew the penalty foul from Damian Rafferty in the sixth minute. Goalkeeper Fergal Byron nailed it for a 1-0 to 0-1 lead that put Laois on the way to victory.
Down had no answer in the first half apart from Hughes's accurate free taking and a tasty point dropped over by Michael Walsh.
Laois sustained their own sequence of well-crafted scores and were constantly threatening with Ross Munnelly's thrusts from the half-forward line and finishing from all the forwards building a half-time lead of 1-9 to 0-5. As important as the economic finishing was the committed defending by the home team, with Joe Higgins, Aidan Fennelly and Padraig McMahon pulling off the most startling interventions.
Munnelly's fine 46th-minute point pushed Laois nine points ahead, 1-12 to 0-6, and a boxing referee would have stopped it there and then but in the 12 minutes that followed Down kicked 1-4 without reply. Walsh, Hughes, with two, and replacement Ronan Murtagh kicked the points and when Rodgers provided the scoring pass for Benny Coulter to shoot a goal, the match was momentarily back on the table at 1-12 to 1-10.
Laois steadied and Down failed to maintain momentum.
"We created some great chances and took our scores well, which I can assure you is more than we did last week," said O'Dwyer in reference to the 20 or so wides kicked against Meath. "Then when they came back at us in the second half we raised our game again."
"We simply didn't play for the first 35 minutes," was O'Rourke's verdict. "We don't know why but it was our worst performance of the four games to date . . . A lot of players didn't start playing until we were nine points down.
"We were short a man, which didn't help us," he said of the abortive comeback. "We lost a man for very little and that gave them a breather, and allowed them pull away again."
Before the match there was a minute's silence in memory of Seán Brennan, a member of the 2003 All-Ireland winning minor panel, who died last week.
LAOIS: F Byron (1-0, a penalty); A Fennelly, D Rooney, P McMahon; J Higgins, D Conroy, B McCormack; P Clancy, T Kelly (0-1); R Munnelly (0-4, one free), C Conway (0-4, three frees), B Sheehan (0-1); P Lawlor (0-2), C Kelly (Stradbally; 0-2), G Kavanagh (0-1). Subs: C Kelly (St Joseph's; 0-2) for Clancy (3 mins), M Lawlor for C Kelly (Stradbally; 40 mins), S Cooke for P Lawlor (68 mins), K Kelly for M Lawlor (68 mins), C Parkinson for C Kelly (St Joseph's; 69 mins).
DOWN: B McVeigh; M Cole, B Grant, D McCartan; A Molloy, J Clarke, D Rafferty; A Rodgers (0-1), D Gordan; R Sexton, M Walsh (0-2), D Hughes (0-6, five frees); L Doyle (0-2, one free), B Coulter (1-0), E McCartan. Subs: B Kearney for Molloy (25 mins), R Murtagh (0-1) for E McCartan (half-time), A Scullion for Kearney (38 mins), A O'Prey for Walsh (56 mins), M Poland for Sexton (63 mins).
Referee: M Collins (Cork).
