Longford progressed to the Leinster quarter-finals with a win over Louth last weekend. Now, they come up against Laois with the winner playing Westmeath or Dublin a week later.
It was a rude introduction to Winter Championship for Longford last Sunday. The conditions made handling and distribution challenging. As a result, neither team made any big moves in the opening half and Longford led by a single score at the interval with both teams finding the net.
The second half continued in the same way. It wasn’t until the closing ten minutes that Longford finally managed to open a gap. In that period they outscored Louth 0-3 to 0-1 and took a 2-point win.
Padraic Davis will be glad his team had a taste of tough winter football and came away unscathed. If the conditions are the same against Laois, the lessons they learned against Louth will stand to them.
Last year, Laois won at this stage of this competition and ended up coming close to being in the Super 8s. However, with no second chances this season they need to be flawless. A win here will likely set up a crack at Dublin which the players will surely relish.
In the League, a final day win against Fermanagh saw them retain their Division 2 status. Compared to Longford, they enter this game fresh after a week off from competitive action. In their last game, Laois found the net three times. If they can find such efficiency again, they will get through this game.
Laois are the favourites for this one. Paddy Power price them at 4/7. Meanwhile, Longford are 7/4 and a draw is 15/2.
GAAGo are showing the game live.
Prediction:Â Laois.
Team News
Laois : Niall Corbet; Trevor Collins, Mark Timmons, Brian Byrne; Eoin Buggie, Seamus Lacey, Robert Piggott; Daniel O’Reilly, John O’Loughlin; Gareth Dillon, Mark Barry, Eoin Lowry; Paul Kingston, Evan O’Carroll, Gary Walsh.
Subs: Alan Farrell, Ross Munnelly, Diarmuid Whelan, Michael Keogh, Sean O’Flynn, Shane Bolger, Patrick O’Sullivan, Brian Daly, David Seale, Denis Booth.
Longford: Paddy Colum, Patrick Fox, Andrew Farrell, Barry O’Farrell, Donal McElligott, Gary Rogers, Colm P Smith, Darren Gallagher, Kevin Diffley, Dessie Reynolds, Joseph Hagan, Daniel Mimmagh, Ryan Brady, Liam Connerton, Oran Kenny
Leinster Championship Quarter-Final: Longford vs Laois, Sunday, November 8th, 13:30 (Glennon Brothers Pearse Park).
And with that our Leinster GAA Senior Football Championship Quarter Final line up is set
All games taking place next weekend?#WhereBelongingBegins pic.twitter.com/xcyIL4hUw5
— Leinster GAA (@gaaleinster) November 1, 2020
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