‘They made it count on the scoreboard and we didn't’ - McNulty

THE Laois senior footballers will now spend the next four weeks preparing for another Tailteann Cup campaign after Kildare ended their Leinster Championship hopes with a five-point victory on Sunday afternoon.

Speaking after the game, Justin McNulty felt that his side had been on top for much of the contest, but weren’t making it count where it mattered most — on the scoreboard.

“It was a game that was there for us, we probably dominated the match for long periods in the first half, completely owned the kick-out, owned the possession and yet we weren't winning on the scoreboard. When you have that period of dominance, you have to make hay and we didn't make hay and then they punished us on turnovers, and we didn't hurt them,” he said.

Laois had a poor start to the second half and it resulted in Kildare going five points ahead with the game having been level at half-time. Laois failed to score for the first 15 minutes after the restart.

“They grew in confidence as we missed our opportunities to punish on attacks and they took their opportunities for the most part. Obviously, they left the penalty behind, but we had good goal chances as well. They made it count on the scoreboard and we didn't, they made it count in terms of possession completions, and we didn't often enough and they punished our turnovers,” McNulty said.

Arles-Killeen’s Paul Kingston was brought into the starting 15, having featured predominantly off the bench throughout the league. He also came off the bench against Offaly. Kingston scored 1-2 in a 90 second burst before ending the game with 1-3 to his name. McNulty also pointed to Laois’ inefficiency in possession and their lack of tempo in attack.

“Paul (Kingston) has that capacity and unfortunately we didn't punish them enough. Whether the scoring opportunities were there and we were in positions to create scoring possibilities, we didn't connect our passes often enough. We got caught in possession on occasion with turnovers which weren't necessarily forced. We just made it easier for them to defend and we should have been moving the ball faster and against stronger opposition that's been our downfall. We just need to be better at that otherwise we won't improve as a team,” he said.

Laois were without Simon Fingleton on Sunday afternoon, but while McNulty said he was a big loss, he doesn’t feel that’s the reason why Laois lost.

“Simon was a big loss of course but they were down players as well so we can't say if we'd Simon playing we would have won the match. It's next man up and we can't always plan for full strength every day out and of course Simon's a great player, he’s a loss, but that's not the reason we lost the match,” McNulty added.

Laois are now sitting idle for the next four weeks as they wait to find out who’ll be joining them in this year’s Tailteann Cup. McNulty admitted that his side can take plenty of confidence into the second-tier competition.

“The boys can take confidence. There's no question we were in that game, bar a little bit of clinicalness in possession. We can look forward with confidence to the Tailteann Cup but only if we rectify the reason why we didn't win that match today and come determined to go and be as competitive as we can every day we go in the Tailteann Cup campaign,” he said.

It felt like an opportunity missed for Laois, all the more so given that Westmeath shocked Meath, last year’s Leinster finalists and All-Ireland semi-finalists, in Tullamore earlier in the day. McNulty ended by saying his players understood the opportunity was there for them to take, but they didn’t.

“The boys in the dressing room, they're gutted. They know that the game was there for us if we had performed to the level that we're capable of. We didn't take it, simple as,” he concluded.