Laois kept alive their hopes of making the Joe McDonagh Cup final with a comprehensive win against a very disappointing Westmeath side in sunny but breezy conditions in Mullingar.
Laois had three wides registered in as many minutes to open the first half – they ended up with a total of 11 by the interval – and David Williams' strike nudged the home team ahead. However, a wonderful individual goal in the fourth minute from Tomás Keyes put Tommy Fitzgerald’s troops into a lead they never looked like relinquishing.
They led by 1-05 to 0-04 with 11 minutes elapsed. A minute later, Aaron Dunphy, who finished the first half with a tally of 1-05 from open play, found the net in style. The O’Moore County men were ahead by 2-09 to 0-05 at the end of the opening quarter.
Either side of the hitherto-wasteful Stephen Maher converting a '65’, Sean Jackson and Padraig Delaney produced goal-saving blocks at either end from Martin Phelan and Eoin Keyes respectively. The latter was fouled close to the Laois goalmouth in the 25th minute, but Eoin Reilly did very well to keep out David Williams’ resultant penalty stroke.
When Laois were awarded a penalty some ten minutes later after a foul on Ian Shanahan, Maher made no mistake with a great conversion to the roof of the net. In injury-time, Peter Murphy scored a fine goal for Kevin O’Brien’s charges. Corner back Shane Williams rounded off the scoring with his third point from play, but Westmeath still trailed by 3-14 to 1-10 at the break.
The teams equally shared six points in the opening ten minutes of the second half, but any slim hopes of a remarkable comeback by the home team evaporated in the 48th minute when the lively Ben Conroy scored a terrific solo goal.
In truth, the match had a training game feel to it during the final quarter as Westmeath failed to make any significant inroads into the huge deficit. Indeed, Laois chalked up no less than 20 wides overall and they still ran out very comfortable winners, with 13 different men in blue and white making the scoresheet.
They led by 4-28 to 1-18 at the end of the 70 minutes’ regulation time. There was still time for the green flags to be raised at both ends in added-time. Both goals were scored by subs – Adam Bate with a cracking shot for the hosts, and Gearóid Lynch with an equally-good finish for Laois with time almost up.
Laois: Eoin Reilly; Ian Shanahan, Lee Cleere, Fiachra C Fennell (0-01); Ciaran McEvoy (0-01), Padraig Delaney, Ryan Mullaney (0-01); David Dooley (0-01), Aidan Corby (0-01); Martin Phelan (0-01), Stephen Maher (1-04, 1-00 pen, 0-03 fs, 0-01 ‘65’), Aaron Dunphy (1-10, 0-04 fs); Ben Conroy (1-05), Cillian Dunne (0-02), Tomás Keyes (1-00).
Subs: James Keyes for Maher (49), Jack Kelly (0-01) for Corby (53), Gearóid Lynch (1-00) for T Keyes (53), Mark Dowling for Dunne (57), Diarmuid Conway for Cleere (63).
Westmeath: Sean Jackson; Shane Williams (0-03), Johnny Bermingham, Naoise McKenna; Mark Cunningham, Jack Gillen (0-01), Rory Keyes; Andrew Shaw, Peter Murphy (1-01); Eamonn Cunneen (0-01), David Williams (0-04, 0-02 fs), Kevin Regan (0-02); Darragh McCormack (0-02), Eoin Keyes (0-04), Killian Doyle (0-01).
Subs: Jack Kearney for Shaw (inj, 17), Darragh Egerton for Bermingham (inj., 38), Josh Coll for Doyle (49), Adam Bate (1-00) for R Keyes (53), John Fry for Gillen (63), Matthew Cunningham for Regan (63).
Ref: Brian Keon (Galway).
