REPORT: Laois minors kick off championship campaign with hard fought win over Westmeath

Laois minor footballers survived a second half comeback against Westmeath in MW Hire O’Moore Park on Saturday afternoon to open their championship campaign with a hard fought win. Laois played with a gale force wind in the second half and by half time, they had built up an eight-point lead at half time.

Despite only scoring two second half goals, Laois did enough to hold off a strong Westmeath comeback to ensure they picked up their first win of the Leinster campaign.

Laois 3-7
Westmeath 0-10
There was a gale force wind blowing into the Abbeyleix end, and Westmeath battled the wind in the first half. They struggled for scores, with both the wind and a water-tight Laois defence making life very difficult for the Westmeath forwards.

Laois opened the scoring through David Costello when he won and converted a free inside the opening two minutes. They were the better team in the opening exchanges, and they were rewarded for a bright start with a goal after just five minutes of play. Hugo Emerson’s long ball found full forward Ryan Little who had crept behind his marker, and he made no mistake in burying the ball to net for the opening goal of the game.

Despite struggling to get the ball up field, Westmeath did have two major goal chances in the first half, their first came immediately after Little’s goal. They broke at pace and Shane Corcoran’s audacious attempt was bound for the top corner, but Tadhg Dineen somehow got his way back to the goal line and cleared the ball out of danger.

Laois’ response was quick and they hit two on the bounce, one a beautiful curling left footed free from Costello put them seven to the good after just 10 minutes of play. Brochan O’Reilly was quick off his line in the 12th minute to deny Corcoran again from point blank range, and Westmeath eventually got their first score of the game 18 minutes in when Corocoran’s attempt at a point came off both the post and the crossbar before the rebound fell to Ronan Murray who split the posts.

Laois fought back and their defence was outstanding in the first half as they completely nullified the threat of the Westmeath forwards. Eoin Johnston’s left footed effort just cleared the crossbar and further scores from Costello and Little stretched the Laois lead to nine points.

A rare Westmeath point from Johnny Martin just before the half time whistle left eight points in it at the break, with Laois set to battle the wind in the second half. Westmeath managed the first score of the half when Tadhg Baker was on the end of a patient move, but apart from this, they were wasteful in front of goal, hitting three wides in the first seven minutes of the half, and dropping two short.

They eventually pointed through Rory Cole and his point left six between the sides after 40 minutes of play. Wesmeath now had all the momentum, and they were beginning to dominate in all sectors of the field. Similar to Westmeath in the first half, Laois struggled to get the ball out of their own half as Westmeath gained a serious foothold.

They hit five unanswered points in the second half through Cole, Oisin Shorthall, Shane Corcoran and Tadhg Baker’s point in the 53rd minute had reduced the deficit to just three points with seven minute of normal time left.

Somehow, Laois found a small bit of momentum and they worked it brilliantly up the field. Costello looked as if he had been fouled but when referee Darragh Byrne waved play on, Costello did excellently to lay it off to Little who coolly dispatched to the net for his second of the game.

Wesmeath rallied once again and points from Cole, Baker and Tiarnán O’Donovan had them back into contention once again as we neared injury time. However, it was too little, too late for the Lake County and a goal from substitute Adam Hunt right
before the final whistle put the icing on the cake for Laois as they survived a strong Wesmeath comeback for their first win of the campaign.

SCORERS
LAOIS: Ryan Little 2-1, David Costello 0-4 (0-4F), Adam Hunt 1-0, Hugo Emerson and Eoin Johnston 0- 1 each.

WESTMEATH: Tadhg Baker 0-3, Rory Cole 0-2, Ronan Murray, Johnny Martin, Oisin Shorthall, Tiernán O’Donovan, Shane Corcoran all 0-1 each.

TEAMS
LAOIS: Brochan O’Reilly; Jake Darcy, Tadhg Dineen, Eoin Cawley; Conor Raggett, Darragh Loughman, Michael Gaffney; Aaron Tarpey, Hugo Emerson; Corey Geoghegan, David Costello, Eoin Johnston; Jeremy Kelly, Ryan Little, Tom Bride. Subs: Kevin Byrne for Eoin Johnston (40), Adam Hunt for Tom Bride (58)

WESTMEATH: Eoin Doran; Adam Keane, Riley Sheahan, Owen McNamara; Tiarnán O’Donovan, Jack Mulvihill, Aodhan Curran; Tadhg Baker, Peter Murphy; John Ryan, Rory Cole, Oisin Shortall; Ronan Murray, Johnny Martin, Shane Corcoran. Subs: Peter Ballesty for Peter Murphy (40), Daniel McCann for Ronan Murray (46).