Kilkenny march on Laois fail to lay a glove

It may have been a game that they were expected to win, but Kilkenny still laid down a marker at Nowlan Park this evening as they crushed Laois in a one-sided encounter and easily marched to the top of the Leinster SHC table.

The Cats created chances at their ease this evening, racking up 17 wides and butchering a host of goal chances into the bargain, but there was never a stage in the game where Laois put their hosts under sufficient pressure to make those missed opportunities a matter of any concern, outside of long-term implications.

Four points in the first four minutes laid down a marker and while Charles Dwyer and James Keyes picked off some good scores to pull Laois back to 0-05 to 0-03, the only reason Kilkenny weren't further in front was their failure to find the target with a series of excellent chances, most notably a close range goal effort from Eoin Cody that was pushed into the side netting thanks to good pressure from Seán Downey.

James Maher and Adrian Mullen started using the deceptively strong breeze to pick off points from distance, Walter Walsh was a consistent threat on the right wing, both in terms of finishing scores and breaking tackles to create overlaps and opportunities for other players, while Eoin Cody and Pádraig Walsh also weighed in with good points, helping Kilkenny’s lead to grow out to double figures and beyond.

The Laois tactic of trying to use a sweeper to shore things up at the back meant that their forwards were consistently outnumbered, but there was more to this than a numbers game, as Kilkenny proved utterly dominant in the tackle, forcing any number of turnovers.

Laois had been living dangerously when it came to protecting their own goal, with two crucial interventions from