Laois School move to a win away from Bro Bosco Cup
Ben O'Connor on the attack for Laois Photo: Denis Byrne
Laois Schools will play Maynooth Education Campus for a place in the quarter-finals of the Bro Bosco Cup after they pulled clear of Carlow Schools on a sunny but breezy Sunday morning in LOETB Centre of Excellence.
After playing against the wind in the first half, Laois trailed by 0-6 to 0-1 but Carlow hadn’t made the most of a couple of goal chances and Laois were far more clinical with their chances in the second half.
It took until the 44th minute for them to get their noses in front but once ahead there was never any doubt about the winner and they are now just one win away from competing against the best schools in the province in the premier schools football competition.
Given the heavy rain that fell in the area 24 hours previously, underfoot conditions were not as bad as expected but the strong wind blowing straight down the field still had a huge impact on the game.
Jack Dooley opened the scoring for Carlow after less than 20 seconds and although it took the excellent Ultan Dunne just three minutes to equalise, that was the last score of the opening half for Laois and they had to do a lot of defending in the remainder of the half.
Carlow goalkeeper Eoin Canna kicked his team into the lead from a ninth minute free and a minute later, Darragh Cullen’s ball in from the left caught everybody by surprise when it caught on the wind before bouncing in the Laois goalmouth and hopping over the bar.
Despite their territorial advantage, Carlow just weren’t ruthless enough with their chances. They really should have hit the net in the 20th minute when Laois goalkeeper Cathal Tierney got himself in an awful muddle when carrying the ball outside of his 20 minute line. Carlow forced the turnover and moved the ball through Warith Oyeninyi and Mark Kinsella to James Horohan but the defenders racing back to the goalline did enough to distract him and his shot was just wide.
From the kickout, Carlow won possession and sent Horohan through again and this time he struck his shot well and hit the target but Tierney redeemed himself with a fine block.
Cullen and Marc Mullhall scored before the half time break to leave Carlow 0-6 to 0-1 ahead but the feeling was that they hadn’t made enough of the conditions and that was to come to pass.
Dunne scored the first point of the second half before Laois were denied a goal from a terrific save by Canna to keep out Barry Connolly’s 38th minute shot but a goal was coming and it arrived two minutes later when David Donohoe fired home.
Dunne then levelled the game in 42nd minute.
Carlow desperately needed to stem the run of Laois scores and a chance a minute later but Dooley pulled his shot just wide of the post.
The excellent Ben O’Connor set up Dunne for a point in the 44th minute that saw Laois into the lead for the first time and when Darren Brennan found the Carlow net a minute later the game was as good as done.
Dunne added a third Laois goal in the 56th minute and the closest Carlow could muster in response was a 20 metre free from Dooley that was blocked on the line by Cathal Ward.
Laois rounded off the game with a wonderful effort by O’Connor and fine score by Finn Dawson and they will now look towards winning one more game to qualify for the Bro. Bosco Cup.
