Galway turn on the style to ease past Laois

Galway 4-28 Laois 0-11

Galway have made it two wins from two in their debut season in the Leinster Minor Hurling Championship with a big victory over Laois in O’Moore Park.

It was a tight affair for the opening 20 minutes as Laois had a big breeze at their backs, but a 10-minute scoring frenzy at the end of the first half put Galway out of sight before the break when they hit the hosts for 3-5 to no response.

Eoghan Murphy (5), Cormac Byrne (2) and Eli Quinn combined for eight points for Laois in that opening 20 minutes but Galway kept in touch through Aaron Niland, Jason Rabbitte and Conor Gilligan before turning on the style for the final 10 minutes of the first half.

Brian Callanan got the first of Galway’s four goals on 22 minutes when Laois failed to deal with a harmless ball forward before it fell into his path and he gathered it before rattling the net.

Aaron Niland followed up an exquisite point with a blasted goal from a 21-metre free on 26 minutes and Vince Morgan put the game to bed before half time with a well taken goal after winning a high ball in from Michael Burke.

Laois struggled against the wind in the second half scoring just three points. Galway totally dominated the second half with the wind advantage and added a further 1-15 to their tally, with Stephen Keane getting the fourth goal on 37 minutes.

Brian Callanan finished with 1-5 from play in a brilliant performance throughout the 60 minutes.

SCORERS 

LAOIS: Eoghan Murphy 0-6 (five frees), Cormac Byrne 0-3, Eli Quinn 0-1, Eoin Bracken 0-1.

GALWAY: Aaron Niland 1-8 (1-3 frees, 0-1 65), Brian Callanan 1-5, Vince Morgan 1-1, Colm Burke 0-4 (two frees), Stephen Keane 1-0, Conor Gilligan 0-3, Jason Rabbitte 0-2, Michael Burke 0-2, Sean Murphy 0-1, Eoghan Mulleady 0-1, Dean Cunningham 0-1

TEAMS

LAOIS: Ethan Lafferty; Lorcan Dunne, Ryan Peters, Charlie Hand; Cian Hill, Eli Quinn, Paddy Callaghan; Jimmy Norton, Donal Deegan; Mark Downey, Cormac Byrne, Eoghan Murphy; Eoin Bracken, Caelum O'Brien, Ruadhri Kavanagh. Subs: Shane Connolly for Downey 6m (inj), Evan Cassin for Dunne Conor Mortimer for Hand Oran Gorman for O’Brien all HT, Ray Goode for Deegan 41m

GALWAY: Shane Murray; Thomas Blake, Sean Murphy, Gearoid King; Dylan Quirke, Donnacha Campbell, Ed O'Reilly; Michael Burke, Stephen Keane; Conor Gilligan, Colm Burke, Jason Rabbitte; Brian Callanana, Vince Morgan, Aaron Niland. Subs: Eoghan Mulleady for Morgan, Jonah Donnellan for Quirke (both HT), Ciaran Leen for Niland 37, Dean Cunningham for Gilligan and Gavin Maher for Keane (both 50).

REFEREE: Owen Beehan