LIVE BLOG: Follow all the action as the Laois minor footballers face Wexford in Leinster opener

The Laois minor footballers face Wexford in Round 1 of the Leinster championship 2pm in O’Moore Park in Portlaoise this afternoon.

This is a very new look minor team with just two players featuring from the team that lost the Leinster semi final to Meath last year.

Captain Darragh Slevin started that game in Navan while Portlaoise’s Kieran O’Donnell came off the bench as a sub.

Centre back Jack Byrne made an appearance in one of the early rounds last year but the remaining 12 players and all of the nine named on the bench will be in line for their debuts.

The last time this particular group of players played together was in August 2019 in the Adam Mangan U-15 final against Kerry.

11 of the players who played that day – Darragh Slevin, Fergus Langton, Ciaran Culleton, Ryan Quinlan, Seán Brennan, Cormac Murphy, Jack Byrne, Conor Fitzpatrick, Kieran O’Donnell, Cathal Lee and Aaron Dorgan – are in contention to do so again today.

We expect positional switches to the team that was named during the week and will bring you the line up when we have it in the blog below.

The minor championship has been restructured this year in order to allow for the completion of the 2020 competition.

Meath and Offaly are both in this so the loser of that game will receive a bye into the quarter finals.

There, they will be joined by Dublin (who also received a bye) and the four winners of the Round 1 games – Laois v Wexford, Carlow v Wicklow, Kildare v Longford and Louth v Westmeath.

The winner of the 2020 Leinster final will receive a bye into the semi finals where they will be joined by the three quarter final winners.

There is no backdoor this year – so Laois will have to win on today in order to progress.

Follow all the action as it happens below:

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source https://www.laoistoday.ie/2021/06/26/live-blog-follow-all-the-action-as-the-laois-minor-footballers-face-wexford-in-leinster-opener/