Some of the good people of Stradbally will today be questioning the wisdom of the GAA to give them a month to play a few meaningful club games before the intercounty championship kicks in. Last night, they ran into a Portlaoise side in a particularly remorseless mood....and lost by forty points.
Laois Today have a pretty comprehensive match report online, which they begin in fine fashion.
Portlaoise 10-16 Stradbally 0-6
No that is not a typo.
The side met in Division 1A of the league, which is taken pretty seriously in Laois by all accounts. The league is generally completed before the championship kicks off in Laois, with the eight teams playing each other twice. Thanks to the April-for-clubs-only rule, county players have been available for the last four rounds, the last of which was last night. That undoubtedly made Portlaoise even stronger, but they were still without seven of the team that started last year's county final. Stradbally, however, were badly hamstrung in the absence of Colm Begley.
As the Laois Today report attests, the game was over as soon as it began.
The game was over after four minutes as Portlaoise had already found the back of the net three times by then.
John Kavanagh scored four goals for Portlaoise, with Conor Boyle and Bruno McCormack the next highest scorers with 1-3 each.
As most of you will be aware, Portlaoise have utterly dominated Laois football for years, and have won ten of the last 11 Laois championship titles. The only side to break that monopoly were, in fact, Stradbally.
Having lost their first game to St Joseph's without their county players, ever since the cavalry returned Portlaoise have won every game they've played, with an average winning margin of 21 points. Their last four games have yielded just the 20 goals.
The full report is on Laois Today.
