McDonnell delivers killer blow for Armagh

Laois 0-17 Armagh 3-10

Steven McDonnell finally landed the killer blow to hand the points to the visitors.

Both sides showed the only leftover from their disappointing 2004 campaigns has been a sharpening of the appetite. Laois will probably still be scratching their heads at how they managed to score 17 points and still be defeated.

For Armagh, after an opening quarter that saw them caught cold in the starting blocks, this was the confirmation they needed to be sure there was spirit enough in the camp left to go to the well one more time this season.

“That was a game we wouldn’t have won last year,” admitted Joe Kernan.

“Sometimes you look at a panel and you have question marks over certain people, but there’s no question marks over any of our boys today. That said, 17 points against us is a big score. It’s good to see us score goals again but certainly we’ll have to do something about our defence the next day. We were all over the place at the start.”

Laois hit the ground running and by the 23rd minute had amassed a 0-6 to 0-1 lead. Noel Garvan was a colossus in midfield, out-jumping John Toal and Malachy Mackin time and again.

Mackin started the recovery with a dangerous high ball into the Laois square. Laois keeper Fergal Byron stayed on his line and when Ronan Clarke fielded the punt he fed Oisin McConville who isn’t the type of player to miss the net from six yards.

Armagh went on to level the scores with two points from Stephen Kernan and McDonnell before Laois recovered their composure and hit three of their own over the sticks.

The pendulum would swing again though and when Clarke again fielded a high punt in the square - and he was ‘in’ the square - Byron had no option but to drag him down and be rewarded with a walk to the line.

McConville doubled the punishment with a shot to the net, past a helpless Garvan, to again bring the sides level before Chris Conway sealed an interval lead for the hosts with his first point.

The re-start brought with it little but yellow cards and free kicks and then, with 15 minutes to go, the game was held up for eight minutes due to a serious-looking shoulder injury sustained by Mackin after a fair but hefty Darren Rooney shoulder.

Armagh hit the front for the first time when McDonnell hit his second of three successive points on 56 minutes. From there on, both sides swapped points but the climax was still to come. With 70 minutes gone, the fourth official indicated eight minutes extra would be played. By then the sides were neck and neck and Tom Kelly had already smacked the ball off the Armagh crossbar.

Clarke tipped the balance in Armagh’s favour with his second point before Rooney’s hand-pass out of defence was intercepted by an Armagh hand and fed to McDonnell. Ten yards out and with the keeper to beat, you just knew how that was going to end.

Conway tacked on two frees before the final whistle but it was too little too late. Laois had been sucker punched once too often.

LAOIS: F Byron; P McDonald, C Begley, T McDonald; K Kelly, D Rooney, P McMahon; P Clancy (0-2), N Garvan; R Munnelly (0-5, 4f), C Conway (0-5, 4f), M Dunne; S Cooke (0-1), S Kelly (0-3), G Kavanagh (0-1). Subs: T Kelly for T McDonald 5, C Munnelly for Byron 35 (yellow), D Conroy for Kavanagh 40 (yellow), C Bergin for Cooke 74 (yellow).

ARMAGH: C McKinney; A Mallon, J McNulty, E McNulty; A O’Rourke, K McGeeney, C McKeever; J Toal, M Mackin, M O’Rourke (0-1), J McEntee, G Loughran; S McDonnell (1-5, 3f), R Clarke (0-2), S Kernan (0-1). Subs: O McConville (2-2) for G Loughran 13, P Hearty for McKinney 39, K McElvanna for McGeeney (yellow), A Kernan (0-1) for A Mallon 43 (yellow), P McGrane for Mackin 49, F Bellew for C McKeever 74 (yellow).

Referee: M Collins (Cork).