Longford lose out to Wexford in Leinster U-20 Football Championship

Wexford . . . 3-13      Longford . . . 2-9

To compound the Longford woe they had Joe Kelly, who scored both goals for Liam Keenan’s side, sent off right at the end for a straight red card and their remaining group fixture is against Westmeath at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park on Saturday June 16.

Due to their far inferior scores difference, Longford (-23) will have to whack Westmeath (-3) by a margin of 11 points to keep alive their very slim hopes of making it through to the knockout stages and even at that they are depending on unbeaten Dublin (+22) hammering Wexford (+4).

So it looks like Longford are out of the new Leinster U-20 Championship, unless a couple of highly unlikely results materialise in the final group games, and Wexford were the better side even though they only held a slender 2-4 to 1-5 lead at the break.

WEXFORD: Ivan Meegan (1-2, 1-0 pen, 2f); Frank Roche, Mark O’Neill, Martin O’Connor; Quinn Saunders, Darragh Lyons, Kyle Firman (0-4); Gavin Sheehan, Ronan Devereux; Sean Nolan (0-2, frees), Mikie Dwyer (0-1), Jamie Meyler (0-2); Cathal Devereux (0-1), Robbie Brooks (1-0), Peter Barry.

Subs:- Richie Waters for P Barry (injured, 21 mins); Barry O’Connor (1-1) for M Dwyer and Sean Furlong for R Brooks (half-time); Sam Wall for S Nolan (50 mins); John Dunne for D Lyons (56 mins); Luke Sinnott for C Devereux (58 mins).

LONGFORD: Conor Gallagher; Kian Gilmore, Ciaran McKeon (0-1), Mark McCormack; Cillian Lee, Peter Lynn, Shane Farrell; Enda Farrell, Daire Duggan; Iarla O’Sullivan (0-1, f), Joe Kelly (2-1), Ruairi Harkin; Alan McKeon (0-2, 1f, ‘45), Thomas McGann (0-2, 1f), Rory Hawkins (0-1).

Subs:- Cian McElligott (0-1) for E Farrell (injured, 35 mins); Sean Noonan for D Duggan (60 mins).

Referee: John Hickey (Carlow).