Portlaoise ladies make their big breakthrough
The Portlaoise ladies footballers claimed their first Laois senior title on Saturday when they denied Sarsfields an historic eighth title in a row.
It caps an exceptional championship for Portlaoise who came through the entire campaign unbeaten and beat Sarsfields twice, in the group stages and in Saturday’s final.
With good underage teams in the club as well as the success of Scoil Chríost Rí, their young players have come of age and they won’t want to stop now. They are in Leinster club action this weekend and will seek to retain their Laois title again next year.
Borris-Kilcotton and Clough-Ballacolla stay standing
And then there were two. Borris-Kilcotton and Clough-Ballacolla will meet in the Laois senior hurling final, which will be played in O’Moore Park on Saturday week, October 10.
Borris-Kilcotton got the better of champions Rathdowney-Errill side who had to go into battle without two top forwards in Mark Kavanagh and Paddy McCane but Borris-Kilcotton were full value for the win to reach their second consecutive final and fourth overall. They will be aiming for their second success.
Clough-Ballacolla, who last won the title in 2015, did enough to hold off a very brave Rosenallis side but an early goal from Stephen Maher and a late one from Stephen Bergin made all the difference.
The excellent free-taking of Paddy Keating kept Rosenallis in touch and they did have a couple of goal chances in the second half, but in general the Clough-Ballacolla defence was well on top and they’re back in the final for the first time since 2017.
Castletown send Ballinakill down
The first senior hurling action of the weekend was on Friday night when Castletown put in their best performance of the year to get the better of Ballinakill.
Ballinakill had chances to win their group games against Rosenallis and Camross but found themselves in the playoff and went down to Castletown for the second year running.
Castletown, however, will be pleased with the way they signed off for what was their third relegation final win in four years. Having lost their group games by an almost an average of 20 points per game, they dug in here and fully deserved their win.
One-sided intermediate football semi-finals
The intermediate football championship has been brought forward by two weeks overall with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final being run off over three consecutive weekends.
But the semi-finals on Sunday evening proved to be hugely disappointing one-sided affairs as Crettyard had 14 points to spare over Mountmellick and Clonaslee beat The Rock by 16.
As is so often the case in the intermediate grade, the teams that come down from senior are very strong. Crettyard and Clonaslee are the last two teams to be relegated from the senior grade and one of them will be back at the top table in 2021. They meet in the final this Saturday in MW Hire O’Moore Park.
Portlaoise and The Harps to meet again
The Premier Intermediate hurling final will see the two competition’s two unbeaten teams go head-to-head after Portlaoise and The Harps had comfortable wins in their respective semi-finals on Saturday.
It’ll be the second time in three years for the teams to meet in the final and Portlaoise will be going for their third win in this grade in six years as they have become the ultimate yo-yo club.
The Harps, for their part, will be playing in their third final in a row and having lost to Portlaoise in the 2018 decider, they will be keen to return to senior hurling in 2021 and win their first ever championship with their first team.
Trumera and Rathdowney-Errill set for latest battle
Trumera and Rathdowney-Errill will meet in the Intermediate hurling final after they beat Clough-Ballacolla and Borris-Kilcotton respectively in the semi-finals on Saturday.
Rathdowney-Errill won the group game between the two but have lost a couple of players to their senior set up since while Trumera have been impressive with wins over Clonad and Clough-Ballacolla since that loss to Rathdowney-Errill.
The sides met in this final in 2017 when Trumera recorded a narrow win.
Mountrath and Ballypickas make the drop
It was a bad weekend for Mountrath and Ballypickas who were both suffered big defeats in their relegation finals.
Mountrath will drop to the third tier of Laois club hurling in 2021 after they went down badly to Colt-Shanahoe while Ballypickas were relegated back to junior after Park-Ratheniska/Timahoe proved too strong. It’s the second year in a row that Ballypickas lost the relegation playoff in the intermediate grade but they were saved last year by Colt-Shanahoe amalgamation.
High quality minor hurling action
There was two high-scoring and entertaining minor hurling semi-finals on Sunday morning but the final will be a repeat of last year’s.
Reigning champions The Harps will play Abbeyleix in the final this Friday night in the LOETB Centre of Excellence in what will bring the curtain down on a very competitive championship.
The Harps were 0-19 to 0-17 winners over Rosenallis while Abbeyleix have a number of players going for double minor glory having been part of the Ballyroan-Abbey football team that won their final last week. Abbeyleix were 4-14 to 3-8 winners over Rathdowney-Errill in their semi-final.
Junior camogie final needs a replay
The adult camogie season will be extended a little bit longer after Portlaoise and O’Moore’s drew in the junior final in Mountrath on Sunday evening.
Portlaoise started with three players who had played in the senior ladies football final the previous day and it was one of them, Amy Byrne, who scored the equaliser late on.
With Portlaoise in the Leinster club football action next weekend, no date has been confirmed yet for the replay.
Portlaoise are seeking to claim a camogie-ladies football double while O’Moore’s second team want to add to the county final success of their intermediates a couple of weeks back.
SEE ALSO – What’s it like where you are? Four Laois people living abroad on their new Covid lifestyles
The post Nine Talking Points from an incredibly busy weekend of Laois GAA club action appeared first on Laois Today.
source https://www.laoistoday.ie/2020/09/28/nine-talking-points-from-an-incredibly-busy-weekend-of-laois-gaa-club-action/
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