Billy Sheehan accepted responsibility for Laois' crushing Tailteann Cup semi-final defeat to Down.

Having looked to have turned their season around with gutsy away wins over Limerick and Fermanagh in recent weeks, the O'Moore County were brought crashing back down to earth with a bang when they were hammered by 22 points at Croke Park. The mauling came two months after Dublin beat them by 28 points in the first round of the Leinster SFC and marked another low point in their season.

"The manager is the one who puts in the game plan, who prepares the team. It’s not the fault of the players, it’s the fault of the manager." the Kerry native told RTÉ.

"They put in a huge effort over the last year and especially in the last couple of weeks, we got huge momentum. What happened today, we’re so disappointed for them.

"We targeted certain areas Down were going to bring. Unfortunately those areas came to fruition. The scoreline probably flatters us, they had numerous goalscoring chances.

"We were rattled at the start, four goals in 17 minutes, and two in the first six. That seemed to rattle our boys a small bit. They’ll learn from it, 100%."

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