Round-up: Allianz HL D4 action
Action continued in Division Four of the Allianz Hurling League. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Allianz Hurling League Division Four
Sunday
Leitrim 2-28 Warwickshire 2-11
Saturday
Sligo 4-21 Lancashire 1-12
Longford 1-23 Monaghan 0-12
The first Allianz Hurling League fixture of 2026 to be played in Páirc na hÉireann in Birmingham ended with Leitrim putting two narrow defeats behind them and easily brushing aside the challenge of Warwickshire in a 17-point win.
Seán O'Riordan (0-4), Philip Burgess (0-4), Colm Canning (1-8), Daniel Miller (0-6), Joe Murray (0-3), James McNabola (1-0) and Paul Mulligan (0-3) all had productive days in front of the posts for the visitors, who kept their promotion chances alive with this win, even if they will in all likelihood have to win each of their last three games and get help from elsewhere.
On current form, both Sligo and Longford will be hard stopped, with Sligo looking particularly sharp in their win over Lancashire in Enniscrone.
Robert O’Kelly Lynch netted in the first minute, but Lancashire hit back strongly with the breeze at their backs in the windswept west-Sligo venue. Consecutive points from play from Conor Murphy, Ethan Costello, Shane Nugent and Darren Grealish levelled the game and the exiles briefly led when Nugent goaled eight minutes before the interval.
The O’Kelly Lynch brothers have racked up the scores in the early rounds of this year’s league and this proved to be more of the same, with Robert bringing his tally to 1-11, while Gerard scored the first of his 2-2 just before half-time to shift the momentum of the game back towards the Yeats County.
Sligo won the second half by 2-13 to 0-4, Eddie O’Donoghue adding the last of the green flags for a side that looks set to bounce straight back out of the basement division.
Longford are also going well and after recording narrow wins over Leitrim and Cavan, they moved through the gears against Monaghan in Castleblayney today.
Just four players raised flags in all for the winners, but that was more than enough as Martin Farrell (0-10), Reuben Murray (0-8), Joe Rabbit (1-3) and substitute Cathal Mullane (0-2) saw them through to a 14-point win over Monaghan, who now have a mountain to climb if they’re to get back into the promotion hunt.
