Courageous Longford overcome Offaly to reach the Leinster under 20 semi-final

Producing a courageous display to beat Offaly in the difficult wet conditions at rain soaked Allen Park on Wednesday night, Longford are through to the Leinster U-20 Football Championship semi-final.

Longford . . . 3-13     Offaly . . . 1-17 

Providing the opposition in the last four will be the title holders Louth (venue to be confirmed) but Donal Ledwith’s totally committed side will not be lacking in confidence in their bid to cause a big upset. 

Morale will be high on the back of the tremendous win over Offaly and this highly entertaining quarter-final clash went right down to the wire with Paddy Mollaghan scoring the decisive third goal in the 56th minute. 

The sides were deadlocked (2-11 to 1-14) when the Longford keeper Darragh Egan made a brilliant  point-blank save in the 51st minute and a goal for Offaly at that stage would probably have swung this exciting encounter in their favour. 

An immediate point from substitute Kevin Baskett regained the lead for the home county and following the Mollaghan goal after he collected a shot from Cormac Flynn, another replacement Cian O’Donnell converted a free in stoppage time.

A two-pointer free from keeper Jack Ryan had kept the Offaly hopes alive but time ran out for the visitors who were left to rue a few squandered chances in the second half of this action-packed game.

Longford recovered from a slow start that left them trailing by 0-5 to 0-1 before Max Gallagher burst his way through for a well-taken goal midway through the first half.

Another goal followed from influential corner-forward Flynn in the 20th minute after the Offaly keeper lost possession in his under pressure attempt to clear the danger and Longford ended up leading by a solitary point at the break, 2-7 to 1-9.

The ding-ding battle continued on the changeover with the late Mollaghan goal deciding the outcome and this was a terrific team effort by the boys in blue and gold. 

LONGFORD: Darragh Egan (Carrickedmond); Alan Mimnagh (Clonguish), Ronan Burke (Ballymahon), Mark Cooney (Clonguish); Sean Egan (Carrickedmond), Conor McHugh (Grattans), Colin Gilna (Abbeylara); William McEntire (Dromard), Max Gallagher (Ardagh Moydow, 1-0); Peter Farrell (Grattans, 0-1), Jamie Dorr (Clonguish, 0-1), Luke Donnelly (Colmcille, 0-4, 1 two-pointer from play); James Hagan (Clonguish, 0-1), Paddy Mollaghan (St Brigid’s Killashee, 1-1, point from free), Cormac Flynn (Clonguish, 1-3, 1 two-pointer from play).

Subs:- Sean Fagan (Abbeylara) for W McEntire (40 mins); Kevin Baskett (Clonguish, 0-1) for P Farrell (50 mins); Cian O’Donnell (St Mary’s Granard, 0-1, free) for M Gallagher (56 mins); Daniel Galvin (Kenagh) for P Mollaghan (60 mins).  

 OFFALY: Jack Ryan (0-4, 1 x 2pf, 1f, 1 ‘45); Tomas Carroll, Jack Maher (0-1), Patrick Kenna; Jake Maher, Christian McKeon (0-1), Harry Goulding; Charlie Duffy (0-1), Eoin Rouse (0-1); Kaelem Bryan (0-4, 3 frees), Dylan Dunne (1-1), Colm Egan (0-1); Ruairi Woods, Cian McNamee (0-3), Cillian Foran.

Subs:- Eoin Dunne for Carroll (half-time), Eoghan Cullen for Foran (42 mins), Dara Cuddihy for Woods (56 mins), Aaron Molloy for Egan (58 mins).

Referee: Alan Coyne (Westmeath).