'Offaly fully deserved their victory'- Laois' Justin McNulty after Offaly defeat

Justin McNulty’s Laois team are out of the Leinster Championship after an eight-point defeat to Offaly on Saturday evening.

Offaly had bossed the proceedings early on but the big talking point of the game came in the 21st minute as Laois full-back James Kelly was sent off after an incident with Dylan Hyland.

Speaking after the game, McNulty says Laois can’t have any excuses as they hadn’t been performing before Kelly received his marching orders.

“It's one of those games where things just didn't go our way. Obviously, the sending off was pivotal, but we hadn't been firing up to that point, but we were just getting a grip on the game at that point, and that was a hammer blow for us. The fellas fought back valiantly to half-time and then after half-time we got a score to go ahead, and just a couple of big plays, and they got goals which killed us off,” McNulty said.

Laois had been trailing by five points after Kelly’s red card but that seemed to spark Laois into life as they outscored Offaly 1-3 to 0-1 to leave the sides level at half-time.

“We were proud at half-time in terms of how the fellas had fought back, and we got ourselves into the position to really worry them, but big plays cost us in the second half, and we need to learn from that. Offaly were a little bit more streetwise than us throughout the game and were fully deserving of the victory. We've got to learn from that and decide now whether and how we're going to bounce back.

“Let people make up their own minds about the red card. I haven't seen it properly myself yet. I’ll let viewers and fans make up their own mind,” McNulty said.

McNulty reiterated that the sending-off had a huge impact on the result but he made sure to remind his players after the game that they’re still heroes for the younger generation in Laois.

“The sending-off, no doubt, was pivotal in the performance, and the fellas did dig deep to get back to level terms at half-time. Offaly were more streetwise. They demonstrated there is a chasm between Division 3 and Division 4. They fully deserved their victory. We got a learning from it and we didn't do ourselves justice on the evening. We didn't achieve any of our targets.

“The fellas know that, they're hurt by that and they're upset by that. But as I said after the match, they still held themselves with dignity and grace on the pitch, and they interacted with the young people, and they're still heroes. Our players are still heroes for those young people, and those young people were just looking up with starry eyes to our players.

That's a big responsibility for our players, and I told them to consider that and see where that brings us next. How do heroes behave,” the Laois manager said.

Laois were dealt two huge injury blows during the game as Portlaoise duo Damon Larkin (hamstring) and Ben Dempsey (arm) had to be replaced. Brian Byrne also played no part as he’s suffering from a slight knee problem. McNulty says that they look to be serious but they’ll have to assess them and go from there.

“We'll have to assess the injuries and see where we're at next week. Both look relatively serious, but it's early days. Brian has just a wee bit of a knee issue, which we felt was holding him back a little bit, so hopefully he'll be ready to rock for the next game,” McNulty ended.