By Jackie Cahill at St Brendan's Park, Birr

Conor Barry insists that his Cavan side will "relish" the chance to pit their wits against champions Cork in the quarter-finals of the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies senior football championship.

But Barry admitted that a performance similar to Saturday's stuttering victory over Laois won't be good enough to compete with the Rebelettes.

Cavan, as Barry freely admitted, made heavy weather of it but this was another step forward for a team crowned intermediate champions in 2013.

They contested an Ulster final this year, losing out to Monaghan, and now find themselves with another big fixture to look forward to on August 20.

Barry said: "We made very hard to work of it. That's not our best performance of the year but we live to fight another day and we're in the last eight, thank God.

"We over-complicated the game on several occasions and we know we have to be better than that."

Aisling Doonan scored 1-6 for Cavan and Roisín O'Keeffe chipped in with 0-5 against a Laois side that had Noirín Kirwan in dazzling form.

Cavan were a point up at the break, 0-6 to 0-5, and looked to have laid the foundations for a comfortable win after playing against the breeze from the start.

But Laois didn't help themselves by registering ten costly wides in the first half and they also lost captain Aileen O'Loughlin to a suspected broken ankle.

O'Keeffe put Cavan two points clear on the resumption before Caitriona Smith missed a glorious goal chance which, if taken, would have made life much more comfortable for the Breffni girls.

Laois hung in there and were level four times before the tide turned firmly in Cavan's favour again when they registered 1-2 in two minutes, a spell that included Doonan's goal.

But Cavan finished the game with 14 players when sub Aoibhín Kiernan was sin-binned and Meaghan Dunne crashed home a stunning goal for Laois from 20m and Kirwan's seventh left them just a point down.

When Dollard saved brilliantly to deny Doonan a second goal, Laois remained very much in the hunt but O'Keeffe's fifth point of the afternoon - and fourth from play - was the insurance score as pre-match favourites Cavan finally got the job done.

Barry added: "To be perfectly honest, they (Laois) won six kick-outs in a row in the same position on the field. We just didn't switch onto that as well.

"Not our best day but as I said, we're in a quarter-final in two weeks' time.

"We have a lot of work to do, we know that and they'll be disappointed coming off the field.

"But for these girls it's new territory, the same as the Ulster final and for half an hour, it showed. For half an hour today it probably showed as well.

"But these girls have come from an Ulster junior final in 2006 and ten years later, we were in an Ulster senior final.

"All their lives they've wanted to play Cork, Dublin, Mayo, Galway.

"They're the teams they've been watching on TV up until three years ago.

"They weren't senior so they weren't making TV bar the odd final or semi-final.

"They'll relish the opportunity, they won't hid but we know today wasn't good enough for the next day."

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