{"id":452825,"date":"2026-05-17T02:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/452825\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T02:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:12:17","slug":"laois-on-brink-of-joe-mcdonagh-final-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/452825\/","title":{"rendered":"Laois on brink of Joe McDonagh final return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laois are well placed for a third Joe McDonagh Cup final in a row after they defeated Down by 13 points in O’Moore Park on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Tommy Fitzgerald’s men weren’t at their best but it was still good enough to beat Down on a day when Stephen ‘Picky’ Maher became Laois’ all-time leading scorer in the championship.<\/p>\n

The Clough-Ballacolla man scored eight points in his 50 minutes on the field and that was enough to take him to 216 points overall.<\/p>\n

The other significant performance came from Borris-Kilcotton’s Aaron Dunphy who finished with 3-05, including a second-half hat-trick.<\/p>\n

The win means that as long as Laois avoid defeat against London next Sunday, they will face Carlow in the final in June.<\/p>\n

Down are all but out of the running now as they will need to beat Westmeath, hope Laois lose to London, for Antrim beat Carlow and, also, see a huge swing when it comes to points difference.<\/p>\n

Down hit the front in the opening minute thanks to a Pearse \u00d3g McCrickard free, but Laois replied with six unanswered points, all from play.<\/p>\n

Maher registered two of those while Martin Phelan, Tom\u00e1s Keyes, Ben Conroy and Cillian Dunne all followed suit.<\/p>\n

\"9
\nAaron Dunphy scored a second-half hat-trick<\/p>\n

McCrickard replied with a free but Laois were eight points up by the 15th minute thanks to scores from Tom\u00e1s Keyes, Maher and Phelan.<\/p>\n

Daith\u00ed Sands, Tom McGrattan and McCrickard then got Down back into it with their first scores from play.<\/p>\n

However, Dunphy’s first score in the 20th minute meant that all of Laois’ forwards had scored by that stage with Aidan Corby and a ’65 from Maher making it 0-14 to 0-05.<\/p>\n

Down were much the better side in the remaining 15 minutes and reduced Laois’ lead substantially.<\/p>\n

McCrickard led the way as he finished the half with seven in total while Cahal Coleman and Tim Prenter also pointed.<\/p>\n

Dunphy ended the half on a high for Laois with a score as his side took a 0-18 to 0-11 lead into the interval.<\/p>\n

Laois made a brilliant start to the second half as a customary driving run from Tom\u00e1s Keyes was finished to the net by the Camross man.<\/p>\n

Maher then took his tally to eight points with two frees to make him the highest scoring Laois hurler in championship history with 216 points – overtaking James Young of Clonaslee-St Manman’s.<\/p>\n

Down rallied after that with points from McCrickard and McGrattan cutting the gap to eight, but Laois finished the tie as a contest in the 52nd minute.<\/p>\n

Martin Phelan won a long ball and fed Aidan Corby who picked out Dunphy on the run and his shot was too powerful for Down \u2018keeper Pearce Smyth.<\/p>\n

\"26
\nPearse \u00d3g McCrickard hit 15 points for Down<\/p>\n

Dunphy repeated the trick four minutes later when he finished smartly after a neat pass from sub James Keyes. The Borris-Kilcotton man then completed his hat-trick after another sub, Jack Kelly, picked him out with a long ball and he slotted the ball into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n

The sides traded points from there as Laois saw out the victory to all but guarantee themselves a trip to Croke Park once again.<\/p>\n

Laois: Eoin Reilly; Ian Shanahan, Fiachra C-Fennell, Lee Cleere; Ciaran McEvoy, Padraig Delaney, Ryan Mullaney; David Dooley (0-02), Aidan Corby (0-03); Martin Phelan (0-03), Stephen Maher (0-08, 0-03fs), Aaron Dunphy (3-05, 0-02fs); Ben Conroy (0-01), Cillian Dunne (0-01), Tom\u00e1s Keyes (1-02).<\/p>\n

Subs: Diarmaid Conway for McEvoy (ht), Mark Dowling for Conroy (44), James Keyes (0-01) for Maher (52), Jack Kelly (0-01) for Dunne (52), Padraic Dunne for Shanahan (59).<\/p>\n

Down: Pearce Smyth; Ronan Smyth, Ruairi McCrickard, Ben Teggart; Barry Trainor (0-01), Caolan Taggart, Niall McFarland; Donal Hughes, Tim Prenter (0-02); Pearse \u00d3g McCrickard (0-15, 0-07fs), Finn Turpin (0-02), Daith\u00ed Sands (0-02); Tom McGrattan (0-03, 0-01f), Ronan Beatty, Cahal Coleman (0-o1).<\/p>\n

Subs: Shea Pucci for Beatty (47), Owen McDermott for Coleman (53), Paul Sheehan (0-01, 0-01 \u201865) for Hughes (58), Tom Murray for Smyth (63).<\/p>\n

Referee: Colm McDonald (Antrim).<\/p>\n

Watch Dublin v Westmeath in the Leinster Football final (2pm) and Armagh v Monaghan in the Ulster Football final (4.15pm) on Sunday from 1.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n

Watch The Saturday Game and The Sunday Game from 9.30pm 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laois are well placed for a third Joe McDonagh Cup final in a row after they defeated Down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-452825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452825","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=452825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}