Leinster SFC Laois1-10, Offaly1-8: Mick O'Dwyer has waited a long time to slip a late goal past Offaly in front of the Hill end and when he's not agonising over the severely deficient performance that preceded that score he'll be grimly satisfied with its circumstances.
Laois hadn't led once in this Bank of Ireland Leinster championship match until over a minute into injury-time, Ross Munnelly fastened on to a spilled ball in the crowded Offaly goalmouth to bang in the winner and pull off a scarcely merited success.
But the scoreboard doesn't often lie and Offaly's astonishing inaccuracies eventually told against them. Over the 70 minutes they managed 20, distributed evenly between each half, and climaxed by a 20-metre free floated wide by Niall McNamee.
That was a little unfortunate for the Rhode player who hadn't had a great match by his standards and ended up taking the kick on his wrong side because Colm Quinn, the left-footed free-taker, had been replaced just a minute previously.
Both sides did their level best to lose this match and even in the closing minutes there was a bewildering array of candidates for scapegoat aside from McNamee. The fateful free he missed came from Laois full back Darren Rooney fouling the ball while bringing it out of defence.
Seconds later Stephen Kelly ballooned a shot at a possible equaliser from the right corner and when it fell Offaly corner back Scott Brady caught possession but then lost it - allowing Munnelly to nip in for the decisive intervention, a well-taken shot off his weaker right foot that was placed beyond Pádraig Kelly's reach.
O'Dwyer pointed to his side's hard work in turning around a six-point half-time deficit but even allowing for that, Laois made hard work of scoring and at times looked as disinclined to win this match as Offaly.
Kevin Kilmurray must be in despair over his team's wayward shooting, which has now totalled nearly 40 wides in two championship outings. Centrefielder Ciarán McManus is often guilty of mixing some confident long-range kicking with some haywire stuff.
Yesterday there was no mix. Although he and Alan McNamee were on top around the middle, McManus had a horror day as regards marksmanship, contributing a quarter of his side's wides.
This wasn't a great match but it wasn't all Offaly's fault. They played some good stuff in the first half, breaking 10 minutes of a scoreless opening with a slickly executed goal, put together by Pascal Kellaghan and Neville Coughlan and finished nicely by Mark Daly.
Offaly picked off points from there while Laois looked incapable of a sustained scoring spell. In the first half none of their forwards scored from play, the sole such point a long-distance effort from Pádraig Clancy that along with Munnelly's free was Laois's lot in the first 35 minutes.
Going forward they looked strangely spiritless whereas Offaly were revved up for the task of defending and frequently surrounded the attacking player until the threat was smothered.
Conor Evans at full back was exceptionally good, dealing with both Kevin Fitzpatrick and Ian Fitzgerald when they presented themselves on the square.
Laois had chances but, as well as kicking their own quota of wides, failed to make the most of good positions. Donal Brennan beat Kelly to a goalmouth ball but as it rolled across in front of an empty net, no one arrived - except Evans of course who cleared.
Joe Higgins - of all people - was on the end of another good move but his shot also flew across the goal.
The match could have been over by half-time had Neville Coughlan extracted the full price from a mistake by Aidan Fennelly and Colm Begley instead of thumping the ball over the bar when clean through.
Although Offaly had problems in the second half - their wides more than three times the total of their scores, three points, and their stamina started to flag as the match wore on - but Laois made heavy toil of getting their comeback up and running.
Their defence was tighter with Higgins - powered by that cadaver's ligament (acquired during a knee operation in the US) but sadly giving the press box no chance to say that he had been left for dead - excellent and Tom Kelly leading some useful breaks.
Stephen Kelly was an improvement on Fitzgerald, whom he replaced at the break, and Kerry native Billy Sheehan did some good work after coming on for Gary Kavanagh at the end of the first half.
Munnelly was the most obvious threat. He wasn't thrilled by his own display and probably did turn back inside too often when on the ball but he kept going and the goal was a great finish.
Still Laois, having got the margin down to a single score, 0-6 to 1-6, struggled to make further inroads and during 10 scoreless minutes from the three-quarters-of-an-hour mark managed to drop some good chances short and despite creating an almost fatal fault-line in Offaly's defence through which Conway hurtled, the player could only drive wide from close range.
The game looked up for O'Dwyer's team when Offaly clipped two points but a run of scores got Laois back to within a point. The entrance of Brian McDonald - back after a ghastly broken leg - lifted the crowd and heightened the excitement for what was to come.
LAOIS: 1. F Byron; 2. E Fennelly, 3. D Rooney, 4. J Higgins; 5. C Begley, 6. T Kelly, 7. P McMahon; 8. P Clancy (0-1), 9. N Garvan (0-1); 10. R Munnelly (1-4, 0-3 frees), 11. I Fitzgerald, 12. G Kavanagh; 13. D Brennan (0-1), 14. K Fitzpatrick (capt; 0-1), 15. C Conway (0-2, one free). Subs: 20. B Sheehan for Kavanagh (31 mins), 19. S Kelly for Fitzgerald (half-time), 26. B McDonald for Brennan (69 mins).
OFFALY: 1. P Kelly; 2. C Daly, 3. C Evans, 4. S Brady; 5. B Mooney (capt), 6. S Sullivan, 7. K Slattery; 8. C McManus, 9. A McNamee; 10. C Quinn (0-1), 11. M Daly (1-1), 12. N Coughlan (0-2); 15. J Coughlan(0-1, free), 14. P Kellaghan (0-1), 13. N McNamee (0-1). Subs: 17. J Reynolds (0-1) for J Coughlan (42 mins), 19. J Kenny for Kellaghan (63 mins), 21. J Grennan for Quinn (69 mins).
Referee: M Collins (Cork).
Attendance: 35,000.
