Laois manager Mick Lillis hailed his team's hunger for the fight after they held off the challenge of Armagh to march on in the qualifiers.
Conor Meredith's excellent first-half goal and another fine display from Donie Kingston led the hosts to a 1-10- to 0-10 victory at O'Moore Park.
Following on from the 2-21 to 2-10 slaying at the hands of Dublin two weeks ago, Laois showed grit and desire in a scrappy contest, and Lillis admitted their response came as a huge relief.
“It was great, it was fantastic," he told RTÉ Sport. "After losing to Dublin, despite all the talk that we had a decent second half and all that, the bottom line is we were blown out of the water in the first 15 minutes.
"We didn’t know what sort of response we were going to get from that. It was great. The lads dug in.
"It wasn't pretty at times. It was a tough, tough championship match, as you will always expect when you play Armagh."
Kieran McGeeney's men cut the deficit to a single point in the 62nd minute and had their chances to level it up before Jamie Farrell and Ross Munnelly sealed it for Laois.
It put them into the hat for round 2A, with Lillis taking nothing for granted.
"To come through that was just very reassuring from our point of view," he admitted.
"I wasn't comfortable at three points up. They always had the potential to put away scores. You were never comfortable. At one stage I was thinking of extra-time. I was looking at how many bodies we’d have fit for it.
"The qualifiers is game by game. We’ll see what the draw throws up in terms of opposition."
