Laois 0-14
Roscommon 1-6

by Ivan Smyth at Kinnegad

Susie Delaney’s five point haul, all from play, helped Laois take the crown as Very Camogie League Division 3 champions following a tense yet entertaining duel with Roscommon at Kinnegad.

The Laois attacker was superb in the opening half, grabbing all her scores during that 30 minutes. However, she won crucial ball in the second half as Laois withstood a determined Roscommon fightback to prevail. Meanwhile, Laois captain Clodagh Tynan helped Laois repel the Rossies, the centre back collecting player of the match honours after the contest.

Laois will be thrilled to secure silverware after losing out in last year’s final to Armagh while also falling just short at provincial level and in last year’s All Ireland premier junior final. On another day, Pat Collier’s side might have been made to regret their tally of 15 wides but the strength of their defensive play restricted Roscommon to just seven scores in ideal conditions and left little doubt as to the stronger side.

Despite holding less experience of finals, Roscommon enjoyed a rapid start. Orla Connolly fired over a free that came after Sarah Dooley almost found a route through to goal after a dangerous Tara Naughton delivery. Dooley doubled her side’s advantage as Roscommon moved two points up after three minutes.

However, from there Laois took over for the rest of the half, hitting 11 of the next 12 scores to take command. Delaney was proving a livewire at corner-forward while she was being provided with quick and accurate deliveries from Líadan C Fennell, Gráinne Delaney and Kaylee O’Keeffe.

Susie Delaney arrowed over four opening quarter scores while she also assisted Gráinne Delaney for another. Roscommon only won three of their opening ten puckouts as Laois pinned their opponents back and played a much more cohesive game, only ever giving the right ball that allowed their inside forwards to thrive, with the exception of one goal chance where Aimee Collier slightly overcooked her pass to Susie Delaney, who was lurking inside.

A Connolly 45 momentarily cut Roscommon’s deficit to two points but Laois, despite their wasteful shooting, began to pull away. Their defence was tremendous in the opening period as Tynan gave her side a platform to attack. Laois’ final five scores of the opening half came from five different players as Gráinne Delaney, Susie Delaney, Aimee Collier (free), Eimear Hassett and O’Keeffe all propelled them to a 0-11 to 0-3 half-time lead.

The second half was a more tense affair as Roscommon outscored their opponents 1-3 to 0-3. The Connacht side knew they needed a strong start to and they got it, when Connolly slotted over a 45 before arrowing over a free to ensure the Laois deficit was cut to six points.

Laois struggled with their accuracy in front of the posts but a pinpoint Tynan diagonal free picked out corner-forward Hassett to help Laois respond.

Roscommon began to exert more pressure in the middle third with captain Rachel Fitzmaurice enjoying a superb second half. Naughton also grew in stature as she set up Sarah Dooley to slot over. A tense period of 11 minutes followed with neither side finding the target but the two sides produced no shortage of effort with the hooking and blocking on both sides keeping supporters on the edge of their seats.

An Aimee Collier free appeared to spell the end of Roscommon’s challenge but a superb run by Fitzmaurice culminated in Dooley smashing to the net and cut the arrears to just four points.

Not to be derailed by all those agonising final defeats last year, Laois had the final say, a late Aimee Collier effort sealing top honours.

SCORERS FOR LAOIS: S Delaney 0-5; A Collier 0-4 (3fs); G Delaney, E Hassett 0-2 each; K O’Keeffe 0-1.

SCORERS FOR ROSCOMMON: S Dooley 1-2’ O Connolly 0-4 (2fs, 2 45s)

LAOIS: A Lowry, L Finlay, E Conroy, F Scully; A Walsh, C Tynan, S Slevin, L C Fennell, L Keyes, G Delaney, K Keenan, K O’Keeffe, E Hassett, A Collier, S Delaney. Subs: S Creagh for Slevin (38), A Tynan for O’Keeffe (51), S Jones for Hassett (60+5)

ROSCOMMON: A Fallon, A O’Brien, S McDermott, M Rogers, H Murray, M Lohan, E McDermott, S Bolger, O Connolly, S Mannion, R Fitzmaurice, T Naughton, C Kilcommins, S Dooley, O Kelly. Subs: D Finneran for Kilcommins (36), C Gacquin for O’Brien (41)

REFEREE: Paul O’Neill (Antrim)

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