Round-up: Allianz HL D3 action

Allianz Hurling League Division Three

Donegal 3-20 Louth 1-10

Wicklow 5-14 Fermanagh 0-7

Roscommon 1-16 Tyrone 0-19

Wicklow’s trip to Letterkenny next Sunday looks like one of the key games across the country and across the five tiers of the Allianz Hurling league. The two teams will go into that game in very good form after them each racked up a big win on Sunday despite losing two players to red cards.

Wicklow’s first round defeat to Roscommon has taken away the Garden County’s safety net so they are the team that are in a do-or-die situation going into that contest in O’Donnell Park, but they couldn’t be in better form and it was notable that they even outscored Fermanagh by 1-2 to 0-0 after losing Emmet Blanchfield to a red card with 64 minutes played, following on from the dismissal of Brandon Ryan shortly before half-time.

With 10 minutes played the score was 0-2 apiece and it looked like things might get competitive at Echelon Park in Aughrim. But by the time Fermanagh scored again Wicklow had 2-8 on the board, including two goals in as many minutes from Pádraig Doyle.

Wicklow held their defensive shape very well conceding a mere three points from open play over the 70 minutes of action, while Seanie Germaine and Eoin McCormack added further goals in the second half.

Doyle completed his hat-trick in stoppage time, bringing his tally to 3-8 for the day.

Donegal actually lost their two players – Danny Cullen and Caolan O’Neill - to first half red cards, and still they were comfortable throughout their clash with Louth in Darver.

The Wee County did see former Limerick hurler Andrew La Touche Cosgrave score his first competitive goal since making the transfer from his native county, but they were still overpowered, trailing by 1-10 to 0-4 at half time on the back of John Kealy’s goal.

Gerry Gilmore scored 1-9 in all, 1-6 from frees, with Richie Ryan (1-2) and Liam McKinney (0-3) also scoring well in the windswept Louth venue.

Despite this defeat, Louth are now safe from relegation as while either Armagh or Fermanagh could technically draw level with them on four points, they have head-to-head wins against those two counties and so cannot be overtaken in fifth place.

Roscommon remain unbeaten in the Division and their promotion fate remains in their own hands, but they left it late at King & Moffatt Dr. Hyde Park to salvage a share of the spoils against Tyrone, needing injury time points from Seán Canning, Cian Murray and Micheál Hussey to leave it 1-16 to 0-19 at the final whistle in the only game played yesterday (Saturday).

Tyrone had six different scorers as they played much of the better hurling in the opening half, only to trail by 1-8 to 0-10 at the turnaround thanks to a goal from Rossie centre forward Cian Bowes.

Michael Little and Niall McGarel took on much more of the scoring load after the interval as Tyrone held Roscommon to just four points in 30 minutes of hurling.

Goalkeeper Enda Lawless who made three wonderful saves to deny the Red Hand County and those saves proved all the more important when Roscommon delivered their late finish to keep their promotion push going.