All our Laois GAA club championship coverage is brought to you in association with Mulhall’s SuperValu, Portlaoise
The Laois Shopping Centre Senior Hurling championship got underway last night with the meeting of Abbeyleix and The Harps.
It provided a small upset as The Harps turned over the recently crowned Division 1 champions.
It continues today with the first double header of the year in O’Moore Park.
Below, we look ahead to both games:
Rathdowney-Errill v Rosenallis
Laois SHC Round 1 in O’Moore Park at 5.30pm
Rathdowney-Errill come into this game as big favourites and it is hard to see anything other than a win for them.
The sides come into this game in very different places with Rosenallis failing to reach the final of Division 2 of the league.
Rathdowney-Errill made it to the Division 1 semi final but lost that and also came up short against Camross in the Leinster League final last week.
From the team that reached the final last year, Ross King and Eric Killeen are unavailable as they are out of the country.
But Mark Kavanagh is back and flying while Eoin Bracken has made the step up to senior fairly seamlessly.
Rosenallis have absentees of their own with Donnchadh Hartnett and Ruaidhri C-Fennell abroad.
David Dooley, Fiachra C-Fennell and John Lennon return fully to the fold after their exploits with Laois but Rathdowney-Errill should still have far too much.
Ballinakill Borris-Kilcotton
Laois SHC Round 1 in O’Moore Park at 7pm
The second part of the double header is a repeat of the Premier Intermediate final from 10 months ago.
Borris-Kilcotton were raging hot favourites that day, as they are today, but only won by three points in the end.
Ballinakill put it right up to them and one would expect them to do so again.
Back then, Ballinakill were without the services of Cha Dwyer who was abroad.
He’s back and helped his side claim Division 3 glory a couple of weeks ago to set themselves up for this.
With Gearoid Lynch, Ian Shanahan and Seamus Fitzpatrick, the spine looks strong.
Paul Simms, who starred as a forward last year, has returned to the goals now also.
Borris-Kilcotton reached the Division 1 league final but will be disappointed at how they lost to Abbeyleix.
With Aaron Dunphy, PJ Scully and Jer Quinlan, they have three top forwards.
Noah Quinlan is a loss through injury but they will still hope to have enough to make a winning start.
All our Laois GAA club championship coverage is brought to you in association with Mulhall’s SuperValu, Portlaoise
SEE ALSO – Check out all the episodes in our ’10 minutes on’ series here
