All-Ireland SFC Quarter-final Replay/Mayo 0-14 Laois 0-11: Some endings just fit. The last kick of the game yesterday was a Mayo wide, a splendid punctuation mark with which to end an error-strewn game. This was a game without a pulse, 70 flatline minutes of fumbling for the defibrillator.

Mayo, the better side throughout, looked as if they didn't quite believe in their own vibrancy. Laois just seemed to wait for Mayo to collapse. In the end time ran out and the Mick O'Dwyer era in Laois ended on a bum note for the great orchestrator.

They mosey on through the championship and find themselves in Croke Park next Sunday for the third weekend in succession. Familiarity with the green acres will be little comfort in coping with the inevitable step-up in intensity a game with Dublin will bring. This was leisurely and pleasant. Next Sunday will be frenetic. Only Mayo know what they have inside them for such an occasion.

They can claim they are learning anyway. Mayo appeared to have grasped the lessons of the first day out against Laois and yesterday they reprised their performance in a slightly different key.

Ciarán McDonald didn't come so deep and in doing so enhanced the attack. Freed of the necessity to process every ball through McDonald, Mayo became more inventive and pushed it about a bit. With a little more conviction in front of the posts they can buy the chance to dream.

As for Laois, it's hard to know what the post-O'Dwyer era will bring but yesterday's evidence suggests they have come as far as they could hope under the current administration.

This was a performance littered with unforced turnovers and scrappy errors, and none of the grit which marked the wins over Tyrone and Meath earlier in the summer.

In the end there was just the gap of a score between the sides but Laois never really looked as if they were about to bridge it. There was an identical gap at half-time but it was typical of Laois's anaemia that the first two points of the second half went to Mayo.

If Laois were to pinpoint the problem it would probably be with their big men. A generally small team, especially at the cutting edges, Laois need big games from their big men. Yesterday, Noel Garvan struggled at full forward having thrived a week ago. Brendan Quigley looked as if this game was just a step too far in what has been a fine season. Padraig Clancy got a point but never dominated, and Billy Sheahan and Beano McDonald were withdrawn before the end.

Laois's starting forwards scored just three points from play and if the introduction of Donie Brennan energised them again, the youngster didn't have the same impact as he had in the drawn game.

Mayo started well in each half. Having been let off the hook early on by a staggering miss from a 14-yard free by Ross Munnelly they clipped a couple of points through Billy Joe Padden and Ger Brady and set the pattern for the game.

Dermot Geraghty went after Munnelly. David Heaney looked dominant in the air at full back. McDonald worked his art closer to the Laois posts. Having taken the lead in the fifth minute Mayo were never caught.

Not that the pursuit was ever sizzling or the football ever dynamic. Mayo did enough to repel Laois any time they had to, and if there are cavils about the quality of the football, Mayo will argue that with a semi-final in seven days' time there wasn't too much point in using their best stuff.

The problems they caused Laois were largely predictable. Alan Dillon ran at the defence with more confidence than he shot with. McDonald pulled strings and sometimes was allowed too much time in which to do so. Conor Mortimer foraged and hunted with energy and was rewarded with a pivotal role in the win.

Brady hasn't quite recovered the form he showed early on in the league, when he was breaking tackles for fun, but Mayo are playing a different style of football now and he isn't required to run at players head-on anymore. Maybe not till next week anyway.

It will be interesting to see if Brady's physical attributes are deployed on Bryan Cullen, leaving McDonald, who operated at centre forward yesterday, to roam.

What Mayo have are options. Four subs from the bench were sprung yesterday, two of them before half-time.

Yesterday they strung together a few modest points and it was enough. Their strongest suite is the break from the back when defenders join the attack, and a point in either half was claimed by a defender joining such forays.

Having fended off what discernible ardour Laois brought to the game in the opening 35 minutes, Mayo opened the second period with the two best scores of the match. McDonald trekked a ball 35 yards out on the left touchline and with scarcely a glance upward dropped it over the bar. Two minutes later he was involved again in a nice exchange with Dillon, which set Mortimer up for a score.

Laois's spirit seemed to run out a minute later. Brennan was fouled and played a quick free to Quigley, who, for an instant, had only the goalkeeper, David Clarke, to beat. Clarke, recalled yesterday after injury, saved well. There was half an hour left but the game was over. What goal chances came Laois's way after that were muffed by too many passes.

In the end Mayo were more comfortable than they could have imagined. McDonald floated a sublime pass for Ronan McGarrity to cash in for a point, closing their scoring with 10 minutes left. The place didn't exactly rattle or hum in those 10 minutes. Pity. One suspects Mayo would have made good use of the familiarisation process before next week.

MAYO: D Clarke; D Geraghty, D Heaney (capt), K Higgins (0-1); A Higgins (0-1), J Nallen, P Gardiner; R McGarrity (0-1), P Harte; BJ Padden (0-1), G Brady (0-1), A Dillon (0-2, one free); M Conway, C Mortimer (0-5, three frees), C McDonald (0-1). Subs: A Kilcoyne (0-1) for Padden (28 mins), K O'Neill for Conway (29 mins), B Regan for O'Neill (43 mins), A Moran for Brady (55).

LAOIS: F Byron (capt); A Fennelly, D Rooney, J Higgins; P O'Leary, T Kelly, P McMahon; P Clancy (0-1), B Quigley; R Munnelly (0-5, four frees), C Conway (0-2, both frees), B McCormack; B McDonald (0-2), N Garvan, B Sheehan. Subs: D Brennan (0-1) for McCormack (25 mins), I Fitzgerald for Quigley (50 mins), G Kavanagh for B Sheehan (53 mins), P Lawlor for McDonald (62 mins).

Referee: J McQuillan (Cavan).