Cavan 0-17 Laois 2-06
Cavan had way too much scoring and running power for Laois, consigning Donie Kingston’s two first-half goals to an irrelevance with an eye-catching display at O'Moore Park in their Allianz Football League Division 2 clash.
The Breffnimen had eight individual scorers while Laois offered little attacking threat apart from Kingston.
His fourth and 32nd minute strikes kept his team in it at half time, level on 2-03 to 0-09 but a run of eight consecutive points pulled Cavan clear.
Kingston struck early on when touching Ross Munnelly’ s free to the Cavan net and then set up Colm Begley for a point but Cavan stuck to their game-plan to tremendous effect.
Ronan Flanagan was playing as a sweeper and along with Damien O’Reilly, caused Laois untold problems with the speed of the counter-attack as they shot seven points without reply.
Niall McDermott kicked five points, with four in an excellent first-half display. He settled whatever nerves there might have been by converting a free in the ninth minute and O’Reilly’s 13th minute score had Cavan in front.
Darren Strong stopped the rot with a brilliant score from 47m with the outside of the right boot before Kingston struck with a peach of a second goal.
The big full-forward had a yard of space and spotting Conor Gilsenan marginally off his line, powered a looping shot over the Cavan custodian into the far corner of the net.
That put the home side ahead but a McDermott free made it 2-3 to 0-9 at the break.
Laois began the second half well again, with points from Kingston (free) and Munnelly looked to have gotten a handle on their lively opposition.
Once more though, Cavan got bodies behind the ball, forced turnovers and produced devastating pace on the break.
This time, they improved on the flourish of the opening half, going on an eight-point spree, while Laois didn’t score again until Munnelly’s rasping drive was finger-tipped over by Gilsenan in the third minute of injury time.
Cavan were completely dominant. Substitutes James McEnroe and Barry Reilly had a big impact, both in general play and on the scoreboard, with McEnroe in particular scoring two excellent points.
Laois had no answer and as a result, fell to their second defeat in Divison 2, while Cavan remain unbeaten, having drawn their opener against Roscommon.
Scorers – Cavan: N McDermott 0-5(3fs); M Reilly, D O’Reilly, P Smith, J McEnroe, B Reilly (fs) 0-2 each; D McVeety, M Dunne (f), J Brady (f) 0-1 each
Laois: D Kingston 2-2 (0-2fs); R Munnelly 0-2(1f); D Strong, C Begley 0-1 each
Cavan: C Gilsenan, K Brady, R Dunne, J MacLoughlin, P Smith, F Flanagan, D O’Reilly, K Clarke, G McKiernan, R Flanagan, M Reilly, M McKeever, D McVeety, M Dunne, N McDermott.
Subs: B Reilly for McKeever (ht); J McEnroe for R Dunne (46), J Brady for M Dunne (64), P Tinnelly for McDermott (67), N Murray for McVeety (69), J Hayes for K Brady BC (70+3)
Laois: G Brody, P McMahon, M Timmons, G Hanrahan, D Strong, R Kehoe, C Boyle, J Finn, J O’Loughlin, N Donoher, C Begley, B Sheehan, R Munnelly, D Kingston, E O’Carroll.
Subs: E Keane for Finn (51), E Lowry for Sheehan (61), G Dillon for Lowry inj (69)
Referee: P Neilan (Roscommon)
