14-man Laois suffer narrow and agonising defeat at the hands of Fermanagh

National Football League Division 3 Rd 6 

Fermanagh 2-13 

Laois 1-14 

LAOIS made the long journey to Brewster Park on Saturday evening to face Fermanagh in Round 6. Laois were coming off the high of defeating Westmeath in Laois Hire O’Moore park two weeks ago and had to put the low of last year’s defeat in this venue to bed.

Evan O’Carroll got Laois off to a flying start when he kicked a two pointer inside the opening three minutes. Brandon Horan opened the home side’s scoring as he pointed from play, Laois then charged up field from here and an O’Carroll shot hit the post and came off Sean McNally’s back and over the line. Fermanagh created a goal scoring opportunity immediately from that kick-out, but Darragh McGurn drilled the effort wide.

McGurn made his way through the defence only five minutes later and riffled the ball to the roof of Killian Roche’s net. Conor Love and Ronan McCaffrey raised consecutive white flags giving Fermanagh a one-point lead. Then, Trevor Collins and O’Carroll split the posts within a minute of each other.

Ciaran Corrigan skipped through the Laois defence but instead of attempting a goal effort, he fisted the ball over the bar. Garvan Jones followed up and pointed his first of the contest soon after. Jake Darcy played a clever ball into O’Carroll, but his effort bounced off the post. Horan struck his point second for The Ernesiders before a shot from McGurn dropped to the foot of Luke Flanagan, who volleyed it to the back of the net.

Disaster struck for Laois in the following passage of play when Robert Tyrrell was shown a straight red card in 28th minute after he kicked out at a Fermanagh player after a tussle on the ground. The half ended with Horan and Killian Roche (free) trading scores leaving five between the sides at the break, (2-7 to 1-5).

It was the Fermanagh centre forward, McGurn who opened the scoring for the second half pointing from play. Roche pointed a two-point free after a foul on O’Carroll while only a minute later, Roche travelled up for a second effort but chose to play it short to Rioghan Murphy who turned his man and pointed. The home side then pointed two in a row courtesy of Love and McGurn before Jones was in the face of Roche but shot to the right and wide.

After a Fermanagh wide, Roche was pulled up for taking too long on the kickout giving Love an easy free from the close-range. Love then pointed from play a minute later while McCaffery added a second to his name pushing the gap to three. O’Carroll then pointed a free and what turned out to be Laois’ final score of the game despite their efforts in the dying minutes. Roche pulled off a fine save from Oisin Kelm shot keeping their hopes alive, but Laois’ efforts came to nothing and saw them suffer a two-point loss.

With only one game left, Laois face into an away trip to Newry on Sunday 22 March where table toppers Down will await their arrival.

SCORERS:

Fermanagh: Darragh McGurn 1-2, Conor Love 0-4 (0-1f), Luke Flanagan 1-0, Brandon Horan 0-3, Ronan McCaffery 0-2, Ciaran Corrigan and Garvan Jones 0-1 each.

Laois: Evan O’Carroll 1-6 (0-3fs, 1tp), Killian Roche 0-3 (0-1f, 1tpf), Trevor Collins, Conor Heffernan, Rioghan Murphy, Brian Byrne, and Paul Kingston 0-1 each.

FERMANAGH: Sean McNally; Jonathan Cassidy, Oisin Smyth, Luke Flanagan; Shane McGullion, Ronan McCaffrey, Josh Largo Elis; Conor McGee, Brandon Horan; Declan McCusker, Darragh McGurn, Ciaran Corrigan; Conor Love, Garvan Jones, Stephen McGullion.

Subs: Aogan Kelm for Horan (54m), James McMahon for McGee (57m), Garry McKenna for Jones (57m), Oisin Kelm for Corrigan (60m).

LAOIS: Killian Roche (Killeshin); Jake Darcy (Annanough), Jack Lacey (St Joseph's), Trevor Collins (Graiguecullen); Paddy O'Sullivan (Portarlington), Aaron McEvoy (Ballyroan Abbey), Simon Fingleton (Park/Ratheniska); Rob Tyrrell (Courtwood), Conor Heffernan (Killeshin); Kevin Swayne (Portlaoise), Ronan Coffey (Portarlington), Darren Brennan (Portlaoise); Rioghan Murphy (Portarlington), Daragh Galvin (Portarlington), Evan O'Carroll (Crettyard).

Subs: Paul Kingston (Arles Killeen) for O'Carroll (Blood, 6-11m), Pa Kirwan (Emo) for Brennan (47m), Brian Byrne (Graiguecullen) for Darcy (47m), Paul Kingston (Arles Killeen) for Galvin (48m), Ciaran Burke (Crettyard) for Murphy (54m), Niall Corbet (Clonaslee/St Manman's) for Coffey (66m).

Referee: Kevin Faloom (Armagh)