Tailteann Cup quarter-final: Laois v Down (Saturday, Laois Hire O’Moore Park, 4pm, live on GAA+)
IT’S just over two months since Laois travelled to Páirc Esler, Newry and put an end to Down’s winning streak in Division Three, and the Mournemen have the chance to put that right this weekend.
The prize for the winner of Saturday’s clash, this time in Laois Hire O’Moore Park, Portlaoise, is a spot in the last four of the Tailteann Cup, so everything is on the line.
Justin McNulty’s Leinster side have home advantage thanks to back-to-back wins over Wicklow and London, while Down, the outright favourites for the competition, have beaten Leitrim and Longford either side of their round two defeat to Offaly.
“They’re a damn good team, they score heavily and they’re a massive goal threat,” said Down coach Mickey Donnelly ahead of the quarter-final showdown.
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Tailteann Cup quarter-final draw: Justin McNulty’s Laois to host Down in last eight
“I was looking at the numbers and they’ve only conceded seven goals in 12 games.
“They have quite a mean defence and they turned us over in the last game of the league.
“They’re a bloody good opponent and we’ll have to be at our best to come out of Portlaoise.”
Down still went on to capture the Division Three league title, beating Wexford at Croke Park, and despite already being promoted ahead of the final round, that defeat to Laois still stings.
“You can still taste the disappointment in the back of your throat,” Donnelly added. “They do score heavily and they scored 2-22 that last day against us.
“The likes of Paul Kingston and Evan O’Carroll, they are top, top players.
“Evan O’Carroll is one of the best forwards, definitely in the bottom three divisions and he’s going to take a serious bit of watching at the weekend.
“They have two really good goalkeepers, a wee bit like Armagh, one left footer and one right footer and obviously they can shock you because they can play either one of them.
“They defend fairly deep and they make it difficult for you to penetrate.
“It’ll be interesting to see have we learned from the league game.
“We were disappointed because we wanted to win seven out of seven and maybe that performance carried through to the league final.
“We need to be on point and learn from that last run outing.”
Down have been short a number of top players throughout the Tailteann Cup and came through last week’s trip to Longford without Liam Kerr, Ryan McEvoy, John McGeough and Adam Crimmins, and still posted 4-30.
“I don’t think we’ll have anybody back from the last day to be honest,” Donnelly continued.
“We’re down a few bodies and they’re just too far away at the minute unfortunately.
“We’ll have a similar set of cards that we had the last day.
“Maybe if we had’ve had another week we could have had another body or two but it’s just come a wee bit too quickly, the back-to-back, seven day turnaround is very sharp.
“Even if lads haven’t trained heading into the game, you don’t want them training the two nights beforehand because they’re fatigued anyway so it’s just very tricky to manage.”
