Fáilte chuig gaa.ie - suíomh oifigiúil CLG

Football

football

Dublin defeat Offaly in Eirgrid Leinster U-21 Football Final

Tom Fox

Tom Fox

EirGrid Leinster U-21 Football Final

DUBLIN 2-14 OFFALY 0-8

By Paul Keane at O'Moore Park

Dessie Farrell's Dublin have created EirGrid Leinster U-21 football championship history by becoming the first ever team to collect a four-in-a-row of titles.

Tom Fox's 1-2 haul was vital and helped secure a record 14th provincial title for the capital county who march on to the All-Ireland series with hopes of repeating their national success of 2014.

Four days on from the senior team setting a 35-game unbeaten record across the Allianz league and Championship, the U-21s were worthy winners and set up an April 15 All-Ireland semi-final clash with the Ulster champions.

Man of the Match Aaron Byrne, Dublin's two-goal hero in the quarter-final defeat of Westmeath, also weighed in with 0-4, the same tally as star talent Con O'Callaghan who was generally well shackled a week on from his 2-5 semi-final blast.

A Dublin scoring splurge of 1-4 without reply between the 28th and 39th minutes opened up significant daylight between the teams and the Sky Blues operated in third gear from then on.

Offaly ultimately rued their wasteful play in the first-half, kicking eight wides during their brightest stretch of play which undermined their bid for a first title since 1995.

Dublin dominated the first quarter and moved 0-6 to 0-2 clear thanks in part to a three-in-a-row of points from Byrne.

They had a Dan O'Brien goal ruled out for an infringement in the buildup and Chris Sallier had a shot deflected into the side-netting.

But Offaly were much improved in the 10 minutes or so approaching half-time and really should have cut the margin right down.

Shane Tierney kicked his third point from play for Offaly to leave them three behind after 22 minutes and the same margin separated them closing in on half-time.

But all of those wides came back to haunt Offaly as Dublin picked off a couple of points from Eoin Murchan and O'Callaghan to lead by 0-10 to 0-5 at the interval.

Dublin added another 1-2 after the restart to open up a 1-12 to 0-5 lead and there was no way back for the Faithful County after that.

O'Callaghan laid the ball off to the onrushing Fox who hit Dublin's 34th minute goal.

Dublin coasted home thereafter and went 16 minutes without scoring until O'Callaghan struck back to back points, his first from open play.

Dublin's second goal arrived in injury-time when Stephen Smith slid a low left footed finish home after a fine passing move.

**Scorers for Dublin: **Tom Fox 1-2, Aaron Byrne 0-4 (0-1 45), Con O'Callaghan 0-4 (0-2f), Stephen Smith 1-0, Glenn O'Reilly 0-2, Chris Sallier 0-1, Eoin Murchan 0-1.

**Scorers for Offaly: **Shane Tierney 0-4 (0-1f), Jordan Hayes 0-3 (0-2f), Ronan McEoy 0-1.

**DUBLIN: **Evan Comerford; Declan Monaghan, Sean McMahon, Darren Byrne; Eoin Murchan, Cillian O'Shea, Cian Murphy; Andrew Foley, Brian Howard; Tom Fox, Dan O'Brien, Aaron Byrne; Chris Sallier, Con O'Callaghan, Glenn O'Reilly. **Subs: **Stephen Smith for Sallier (41), Sean Bugler for O'Brien (42), Darren Gavin for Fox (48), Aaron Elliot for O'Reilly (51), Andrew McGowan for Monaghan (57).

**OFFALY: **Barry Rohan; Clint Horan, David Dempsey, Colm Doyle; Adam Mahon, PJ Daly, Jack Egan; James Lalor, Jordan Hayes; Ciaran Farrell, Ruairi McNamee, Jack Walsh; Ronan McEvoy, Patrick Dunican, Shane Tierney.

**Subs: **Kyle Higgins for Daly (41), Jake Clancy for Dunican (49), Carl Stewart for Egan (62).

Ref: David Hickey (Carlow).