Offaly see off Laois to end long wait for a Leinster minor title

Tenacious defending, ravenous foraging in the middle third, clever use of the ball and a spread of nine different scorers all across the field were the key ingredients as Offaly defeated Laois at MW Hire O'Moore Park to end a 22-year wait for an Electric Ireland Leinster minor hurling title.

A remarkable crowd of 12,500 supporters made their way to Portlaoise for this unique and historic decider, the first ever provincial minor decided contested by these two midlands neighbours.

Having disposed of both Wexford and Kilkenny on the way here, Laois were also in ferociously high spirits, and confident of turning over the three-point defeat they suffered when these two sides met in the first round of the competition.

However their tactics seemed to misfire tonight as they failed to use the wind in the first half, and arguably lost the game in that opening 30 minutes, even though they trailed by just two points – 0-09 to 0-07 – at the end of it.

Inaccurate shooting was part of the problem for the home side, as they shot nine first-half wides, but a huge amount of credit must also go to Offaly's remarkable defensive work, in particular their half-back line of Donal Shirley, Ter Guinan and Brecon Kavanagh, who cleared a world of ball and made life incredibly difficult for their direct opponents.

The majority of scores in the opening half came from frees from Adam Screeney and Ben Deegan, but there was still an incredibly high level of quality to the play as superb scores from play from Guinan, Screeney and Cillian Martin helped Offaly move into an early lead.

Ciarán Flynn and Tom Cuddy held their ground incredibly well along the spine of the Laois defence and that protected Brochan O'Reilly’s goal, but far too many of the Laois shots