These sides exchange places at the foot of the Division 1B table following this result, with the Ulster men already staring at second Division football next term, with three points from six games.

Cavan went in front on 6 minutes from a Jason O’Reilly free, and coupled with a Sean Johnson effort from play, erasing Ian Fiztgerald’s Laois score, they held a 0-2 to 0-1 lead.

Sean Brady bumped their tally up to 1-3 with an eighteenth minute goal but a 35th minute goal for Munnelly, after a driving run by Colm Parkinson, and an injury time point from wing forward Michael Lawlor put Laois 1-6 to 1-3 in front at the break.

Fifty seconds after the restart, Larry Reilly pointed for Cavan and there looked to be a revival on, but Munnelly was sure fire from the placed ball all afternoon, and he hit his fourth free over four minutes later.

Anthony Forde and Larry Reilly snatched points for Cavan before Brian ‘Beano’ McDonald nailed his only score on 58 minutes for a 1-8 to 1-6 lead.

Late points from Chris Conway (0-1) and Munnelly (2 frees) closed out the win, with Cavan not having enough to close the gap further, bar the efforts of forwards Jason and Finbarr O’Reilly.