Meath 3-12
Laois 0-10

Meath made their way to the knockout stages of the Leinster U20 Football Championship with this comfortable win over Laois played in perfect conditions at Ashbourne. PHOTOS

After their routine win over Carlow last week in Round 1 the expected sterner test from Laois never materialised as the home county dominated most of the game.

Stephen Cahill put the winners on the scoreboard first but by the end of the first quarter Laois, with their best spell in the game, led 0-4 to to 0-3 with fine scores from Ultan Dunne and Ennae Byrne.

Kyle O’Brien levelled matters before the game's first goal arrived, courtesy of lively corner forward Cormac O’Donoghue's brilliant solo effort. Laois hit back with a two pointer from corner back Ben O’Connor and a pointed free from Byrne had the game all square again. With two minutes remaining in the half Ben Corkery raced through the heart of the Laois defence and fired an unstoppable shot to the roof of the net and Cathal O Bric’s men took a 2-4 to 0-7 advantage to the dressing room.

Despite a period of early pressure from Laois in the second Meath were well on the road to victory at the end of the third quarter. Five unanswered points from Corkery, Cian Commons, O’Donoghue, Eoin McCrudden and John Harkin put the Royals in a commanding position. The visitors had to wait until the 51st minute for their first score of the second half, Eoin Johnson sending over from a free.

Any hopes of a Laois revival were well and truly extinguished minutes later when brilliant work from Adam Ducie set up Pat Crawley for goal number three. The Ratoath and Oldcastle men were only introduced as substitutes. Laois had a couple of goal chances towards the end but fine saves from keeper Finn Moore kept them at bay and Meath went on to record an 11 point victory.

The defeat ends Laois’ interest while Meath travel to Longford for Round 3. Both teams are unbeaten, the winner will advance to the semi final, the loser to the quarter final.

Meath: Finn Moore; Cillian Yore, Sam Jordan, Shane Callaghan; Cormac Smith 0-1, Colin Scanlon, Kyle O’Brien; Michael McIvor, Paul Hennessy 0-1; Eoin McCrudden 0-1, John Harkin 0-3, Stephen Cahill 0-1; Ben Corkery 1-1, Cian Commons 0-1, Cormac O’Donoghue 1-2. Subs: Adam Ducie for Corkery, Charlie Gallagher for Commons, Liam Jennings 0-1 for O'Donoghue, Pat Crawley 1-0 for Cahill, Sean Betson for Scanlon.

Laois: Cathal Tierney; Ben O’Connor 0-2, Dan Boland, Fionn O’Sullivan; Hugo Emerson, Danny McGrath , Cathal Buggie; Robbie Murphy, Darren Brennan; Paddy Fitzpatrick, Eoin Johnson 0-1, David Donohue; Dylan Murphy, Ennae Byrne 0-4, Ultan Dunne 0-2. Subs: Jack Julian, James Dunne, Conor O'Callaghan 0-1, Cormac Deegan, Tom O'Connell

Referee: Ultan McElroy (Louth).

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