Leinster Hurling championship: A final-quarter flourish by Laois champions Portlaoise, which yielded two cracking goals from Noel Costello and Brian McCormack, was enough to see off the challenge of hosts Castletowngeoghegan by 2-17 to 1-12 in the Leinster club hurling championship in Portlaoise yesterday.

Alan Mangan kept the home side in the hunt with a succession of fine points and at the interval Castletowngeoghegan led by 0-7 to 0-6.

As Portlaoise began to turn on the style Costello and McCormack struck for gold to book the Laois champions' passage into the next round.

Kilmessan trounced Louth champions Pearse Óg by 0-22 by 1-6 in a one-sided first-round tie at Navan, with Nicky Horan leading the scoring charge for the winners.

Horan sent over ten points for the Meath champions while the Dundalk outfit suffered the further ignominy of having Paul Sharkey sent off late in the tie before they picked up the consolation of an injury-time goal from Marc Larkin.

Horan was on the mark five times in the first half and Stephen Clynch registered three points as Kilmessan went on to a 0-12 to 0-4 interval advantage.

Carnew's Don Hyland steered his team to a 4-20 to 0-5 victory over Wolfe Tones from Longford in their first-round game at Arklow yesterday afternoon.

The Wicklow side chalked up a runaway 27-point victory, with full forward Hyland accounting for 2-7 of their total.

The game was well and truly over as a contest by half-time with Carnew already leading by 2-13 to 0-3 at that stage.

Midfielder Seán Brown scored all five of Wolfe Tones' points, one from a 65 and the remainder from frees.