Waterford make light of Laois despite missing stars

Laois 0-14 Waterford 1-19

Laois were dangerous enough in the opening quarter to ask serious questions of Justin McCarthy's side but all were answered in the most emphatic fashion and well before the end the contest was over, replaced by a procession of Deise scores.

Waterford had arrived in the midlands minus the injured trio of Ken McGrath, Paul Flynn and Tony Browne and knew all too well that Laois would have their tails ups following their encouraging display in Ennis against Clare eight days previously.

They would have known too that the sight of their white shirts have brought out the best in Paudie Butler's side this past two years, with the O'Moore county running them close in the league in Portlaoise in 2003 and again in the south-east 12 months earlier. From the start they made here, it looked like Waterford were in for another hard day at the office.

Midway through the opening half, the hosts were motoring and were well worthy of their 0-4 to 0-0 lead. Midfielder James Young was the lynchpin, firing three points from dead balls, with corner-forward Philip Russell completing the quartet with a lovely shot from wide on the right.

Waterford just weren't at the races. Their touch was leaden and with McGrath, Flynn and Browne unavailable they were short of real leaders. Not for the first time though, their salvation arrived courtesy of the imperious John Mullane, who pilfered Laois for 1-4 in the space of the next 14 minutes. And how he was needed - Waterford still hadn't managed a solitary shot on goal to boast of before the De La Salle man turned the game on its head.

The first two deliveries came within 30 seconds of each other, the first over the right shoulder, the second over the left. The path to goal finally paved, his colleagues began to pitch in. Dave Bennett hit a free, Brian Phelan popped one over on the run and then Eoin Kelly managed a third.

Laois were listing badly by now, but Young temporarily kept their heads above the gathering tide with another pair of white flags and then Russell grabbed his second. The lack of scoring from the rest of their companions was beginning to tell, yet it was at the back that their real worries were mounting up.

Mullane added another point with five minutes to go to the break to leave Waterford only a point adrift before firing to the net from an acute angle after Laois keeper Patrick Mullaney had denied Seamus Prendergast a split-second beforehand. Most disappointing of all for Laois was the fact that Damien Culleton had missed a gilt-edged goal chance of his own at the far end less than a minute before.

Laois desperately needed to reach the sanctuary of the dressing room without shipping another body blow. In the event, they had to absorb four with Brian Wall, Mullane and Eoin Kelly (two) doing the damage to leave it 1-10 to 0-7 at the break.

Laois needed a rerun of the opening 15 minutes to breathe new life into the game, but Waterford had clearly learnt their lesson well and comfortably kept their opponents at arm's length for the rest of the afternoon. Rather than narrow the deficit, Laois could do little about the scores piling up beside Waterford's name on the scoreboard.

Mullane's work here was done and he wouldn't trouble the umpires for the next 35 minutes, partly because of the close and sometimes illegal attentions of his marker Liam Tynan, who found himself sent to the line eleven minutes from time. In the event, the slack was picked up with impressive affect by his teammates. Indeed, the only real talking point after the break was the fact that a game with barely one dirty blow could produce four yellow cards, three of them for Waterford men.

Justin McCarthy was at a loss to understand why afterwards. "Players are having to be too tentative altogether over the whole thing. It's making a bit of a mockery of the whole thing. I'm all for good, hard hurling and there was no dangerous play there at all. There was no malice to any of the tackles. It's a bit of a shambles to be honest.

"I can't see what it's doing for the game and it's making the referee's job all the harder. I can't see the benefit in it. If I could see a benefit in I'd say, 'yeah, great', but I can't.

LAOIS: P Mullaney; B Campion, P Cuddy, L Tynan; J Fitzpatrick, S Dwyer, M McEvoy; J Young (0-7, 4f), J Walsh (0-1); C Coonan (0-1), J Rowney (0-1), M Rooney; D Culleton, R Jones, P Russell (0-2).

Subs: C Brophy (0-1) for Rooney 45, D Walsh for Tynan (yellow card) 59, E Jackman for Coonan 66, C Clear (0-1) for Walsh 67.

WATERFORD: C. Hennessy, T. Feeney, F. Hartley, J. Murray, B. Wall (0-1), D. Prendergast, E. Murphy, B. Phelan (0-2), M. Walsh, E. Kelly (0-7, 4f), D. Shanahan (0-1), D. Bennett (0-3, 2f), J. Mullane (1-4), S. Prendergast (0-1), J. Kennedy.

Subs: E Kelly for Walsh (blood sub) 4, Walsh for E Kelly (yellow card) 5, S Brenner for Hennessy 45, A Moloney for Bennett (yellow card) 58, D Coffey for Murray 63, P Foley for Phelan (yellow card), 65.

Referee: D Kirwan (Cork).