Laois blew Division 3 of the Allianz Football League wide open as they massively upset the odds to record victory over Westmeath on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
Justin McNulty’s charges were outsiders against a side they hadn\u2019t beaten since 2019 but turned that on its head.<\/p>\n
A first-half goal from Ronan Coffey gave them the platform with strikes from Paul Kingston and Evan O\u2019Carroll settling the matter in the second half.<\/p>\n
It is a win that moves Laois from seventh to third in the table and leaves them just a point behind Westmeath who still sit second.<\/p>\n
Laois played with the wind in the first half but a bit like their game against Clare last week, for long spells, it didn\u2019t look like they were doing enough with it.<\/p>\n
Luke Loughlin was on fire for Westmeath as his accuracy helped them battle back from a 1-4 to 0-3 deficit after 10 minutes when Coffey had scored Laois\u2019s first goal following a great pass from Paddy O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n
Laois got four of the last five scores of the half, including the night\u2019s only two-pointer from keeper Killian Roche, to leave them 1-9 to 0-9 ahead at the break.<\/p>\n
Westmeath turned with the wind in the second period but their shooting in front of goal really let them down – finishing with seven second half wides.<\/p>\n
The game turned dramatically Laois\u2019s way in the 50th minute when teenager Darren Brennan shot his goalbound effort handled on the ground inside the small square.<\/p>\n
This was Laois\u2019s third penalty in a row and after Evan O\u2019Carroll had missed the previous two, Paul Kingston took responsibility and converted.<\/p>\n
And then Laois settled the game as a contest in the 65th minute when sub Niall Corbet found O\u2019Carroll and he unleashed a powerful finish to the corner.<\/p>\n
There was late drama as Loughlin converted a penalty after Jack Lacey was black carded but Westmeath\u2019s night got even worse before the end when midfielder Ray Connellan was shown a straight red card for an off-the-ball incident.<\/p>\n
Laois: Killian Roche (0-03, 1tp); Jack Lacey, Trevor Collins, Jake Darcy; Paddy O\u2019Sullivan, Aaron McEvoy, Simon Fingleton; Conor Heffernan, Rob Tyrell; Darren Brennan (0-01), Ronan Coffey (1-01), Kevin Swayne (0-01); Rioghan Murphy (0-01), Daragh Galvin (0-03), Evan O\u2019Carroll (1-03, 0-02 frees).<\/p>\n
Subs: Padraig Kirwan (0-01) for McEvoy (45), Paul Kingston (1-02, 1-00 pen, 0-01f) for Coffey (48), Ciaran Burke for Tyrrell (58), Niall Corbet for Brennan (64), Mikie Dempsey for Murphy (68)<\/p>\n
Westmeath: Jack Connaughton; Danny Scahill, Charlie Drumm, Sam Smyth; Ronan Wallace, Shane Allen (0-01), Matthew Whittaker; Ray Connellan, Harry Niall; Kevin O\u2019Sullivan (0-03), Sam McCarten (0-02, one free) Brian Cooney; Shane Corcoran (0-01), Luke Loughlin (1-06, 1-00 pen, 0-02f) Robbie Ford.<\/p>\n
Subs: Danny McCarten for Corcoran (HT), Brian Guerin for Niall (48), Tom Molloy for Ford (49), Brandon Kelly for Wallace (55), Jack Duncan for Whittaker (57)<\/p>\n
Referee: Chris Maguire (Clare)<\/p>\n
Watch Allianz League Sunday from 9.35pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport. Listen to Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laois blew Division 3 of the Allianz Football League wide open as they massively upset the odds to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-322583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}