Dublin Win 47th Leinster Title

Leinster SFC Final
Dublin 3-14
Laois 1-14

By Dermot Kavanagh

Dublin brought the provincial system to a close at Croke Park on Sunday with a six point win over Laois before an attendance of 81,364 patrons. This was Dublin's 47th Leinster title and the county's first three in a row of provincial titles since the mid 1990s.

While Dublin's winning margin might suggest that this win was comfortably achieved the first 15 minutes of the game didn't anger well for them and a win by any margin looked remote.

Laois, determined not to repeat last years collapse to Dublin where they lost by 13 points were quick to assert themselves and were not flattered to have engineered a lead of 1-4 to 0-2 by the 16th minute.

The Laois goal arose through the alertness of Ross Munnelly who, in the 7th minute availed of a misjudgement of a high ball, Dublin full back Ross McConnell, to stroke the ball into the Dublin net. Laois were also winning the tactical battle by the use of wing forward Peter O' Leary as an extra defender and wing back Brian McCormack as a sweeper. While Dublin were trying to sort out how to deal with the Laois system they were grateful to their new peroxide sensation, Mark Vaughan who kept them in touch with some brilliant free taking.

Dublin then pushed centre half Bryan Cullen forward and with Ciaran Whelan starting to dominate midfield the complexion of the game began to change.

This change was dramatically cemented in the 28th minute when Dublin struck for two brilliantly taken goals. The first goal came about through somewhat controversial circumstances as Cullen clearly overran with the ball before laying it off to Vaughan whose finishing was lethal.

The second goal was pure class as Sherlock, having fielded Byron's poor kick out laid on a sublime 20 metre foot pass to Keaney who in turn passed on to Bernard Brogan who gave Byron no chance from close range.

Thus Laois saw a three point lead not only cancelled both replaced with a three point deficit in a matter of 60 seconds.

With Hill 16 in full flight the momentum of the game had clearly swung Dublin's way. Their halftime lead of 2-7 to 1-7 makes the point.

The second half was only seconds old when Whelan increased Dublin's lead with a long-range point. There was still fight left in Laois and they replied with two swift points from Parkinson and McCormack to keep their hopes alive. However before Laois could make further inroads into Dublin's lead they found themselves eight points in arrears when in the 41 minute Alan Brogan finished a clever part of Dublin forward play to score his sides third goal.

However the expected Dublin victory did not materialise as Laois refused to collapse.

Points were exchanged but had Laois availed of the many point taking chances that they created they would surely have reduced the Dublin lead by far more then these six points which separated the teams at the end.

In that final quarter they dominated the outfield exchanges and with Quigley and Clancy finally challenging Whelan's dominance the supply to the Dublin attack dried up. In that period Dublin failed to score from the 46 to the 65 minute while Laois missed at least six scoreable chances through going for goals when points were there for the taking.

In addition Laois had to endure seeing Cluxon bring off a magical save from Parkinson and a pile driver from Tierney rebound from the crossbar with Cluxon well beaten.

Dublin deserved their win if nothing else but for the quality of their goals and the manner in which they turned the game around during their pre halftime offensive.

However they once again went through a barren period of scoring during the final quarter, a flaw that was their undoing last year against Mayo and almost their undoing earlier this year in both games against Meath.

Such inability to close out games would prove disastrous against any of the remaining championship contenders.

To the credit of Laois they kept plugging away and with a more sensible approach to point scoring could almost have snatched it at the end.

They suffered two sucker punches in the 28th minute, blows that proved crucial in the end. They can look forward to the qualifier clash with Derry with justifiable optimism.