Glorious redemption for Offaly at Croke Park and the cherry placed on top of a terrific week for hurling in the Faithful County.
Goals at the beginning of both halves from Brian Duignan, who top-scored with 1-04, and substitute Oisin Kelly, fired Offaly to a first ever Joe McDonagh Cup title - securing their return to the Liam MacCarthy Cup for the first time since 2018.
A week after the county's much-celebrated All-Ireland U-20 win, it was another dramatic breakthrough success, though the sides were tied for the 11th time in an epic encounter at the 70-minute mark.
Three points in-a-row from Killian Sampson, Charlie Mitchell and Jack Clancy ultimately won it for Johnny Kelly's side who went one better than last year's agonising final defeat to Carlow.
Aside from securing their place in the Leinster championship for 2025, a more immediate reward for Offaly is an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final clash with Cork in Tullamore next Saturday.
All is not lost this season for Laois who will have the opportunity to make progress in the All-Ireland series too when they take on Wexford in Portlaoise.
Laois, winners of the McDonagh Cup in 2019, gave it everything they had and twice bounced back from slow starts to each half and goal concessions by drawing level, but they couldn't repeat their group stage win over their neighbours.
Offaly boss Kelly made 11 changes from the experimental side that beat Down in the final round robin game, naming four of the U-20s that competed in last weekend's landmark win over Tipperary.
Duignan was one of the four Offaly players retained from the line-up against Down and his second minute goal came as a giant boost to the favourites.
Dan Bourke won possession after a Laois puck-out was turned over and when he played in Duignan the Durrow man had only the net on his mind.
Duignan added a sixth-minute point and at that stage Offaly led by 1-03 to 0-01, a blistering start that brought back memories of Charlie Mitchell's early goal in last year's decider against Carlow.
Offaly, of course, failed to win that one 12 months ago and their big early lead was reeled in this time too, as Laois belatedly found their range.
Five Laois points in-a-row between the seventh and 14th minutes tied it up at 0-06 to 1-03.
Purcell got one of those points and it was quickly becoming evident that the Laois midfield of Purcell and Corby was on top in their sector.
They shared out eight points between each other in the first-half, four for Purcell and four for Corby. And all from open play.
The Offaly management responded by moving Dan Bourke to midfield, taking off Eimhin Kelly and bringing on Oisin Kelly in the half-forward line.
Eoghan Cahill was prominent in Offaly's attack, switching from the left wing to the right wing, and getting on lots of ball. He scored five first-half points, three from play, but blasted three wides too.
The sides were level on 10 occasions in the first half and, even at that early stage, extra-time for the second year running seemed a live possibility.
A brilliant third quarter changed all of that as Offaly grabbed the scores they needed to put significant daylight between the teams.
Sub Kelly netted just 20 seconds after the restart, after a stunning solo run and strike across the goalkeeper.
Cahill, Mitchell and Killian Sampson added points and twice Offaly opened up seven-point leads, taking a 2-19 to 0-18 advantage into the final 20 minutes.
It looked as if Laois, who failed to convert three decent goal chances in the third quarter, had blown their chance but they refused to relent and impressively got it back to a level game after 70 minutes.
Aaron Dunphy was terrific for the O'Moore men with 11 points in total, and five in-a-row as they reeled in Offaly late on.
But the goal they needed never materialised and Offaly held on for a highly significant win.
Offaly: Mark Troy; Cathal King (0-01), Ciaran Burke, Ben Conneely; David King, Cillian Kiely (0-02), Donal Shirley; Jason Sampson, Eimhin Kelly; Killian Sampson (0-02), Dan Bourke (0-01), Eoghan Cahill (0-07, 0-05f); Brian Duignan (1-04), Charlie Mitchell (0-04), Adam Screeney (0-01).
Subs: Oisin Kelly (1-00) for Eimhin Kelly 30, Colin Spain for Screeney 55, Jack Clancy (0-01) for Cahill 67, Sam Bourke for Dan Bourke 71,
Laois: Enda Rowland; Diarmuid Conway, Ian Shanahan (0-01), Ryan Mullaney; Tom Cuddy, Padraig Delaney, Liam O'Connell (0-01); Aidan Corby (0-04), Patrick Purcell (0-05); Fiachra C Fennell (0-01), Aaron Dunphy (0-11, 0-06f, 0-02 65), David Dooley; James Duggan (0-01), Tomas Keyes (0-01), Jer Quinlan.
Subs: Stephen Maher for Fennell 42, Donnchadh Hartnett for O'Connell 44, Ross King (0-01) for Duggan 46, Willie Dunphy for Keyes 60, John Lennon for Purcell 71.
Referee: Colm McDonald (Antrim).
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