Round-up: Dalata Hotel Group Connacht U20 Championship action
Kobe McDonald impressed for Mayo. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Dalata Hotel Group Connacht U20 Football Championship
Roscommon 3-6 Leitrim 2-7
Mayo 3-16 Galway 1-12
Moments of sheer brilliance from Kobe McDonald helped Mayo secure an automatic passage through to the 2026 Dalata Hotel Group Connacht U-20 final, while Galway will meet Roscommon in a semi-final after the Rossies narrowly overcame Leitrim in windy and wet conditions at King & Moffatt Dr. Hyde Park.
Leitrim would have needed to win by seven points or more to overtake Roscommon and Sligo and sneak into third place in the table, and while they would have preferred to see better weather to facilitate high scoring, they did get an early shot in the arm when Colm McLoughlin’s shot evaded the grasp of Patrick Gaynor and slipped into the net.
The mistake count was understandably high for both teams and Roscommon got a break of their own when John Curran took a shot that rebounded off Eanna McNamara and came back into his path for a Roscommon goal in reply.
Curran scored 2-4 in all, his second goal finishing off good work from Eoin Collins and Keelan Kelly, and a third goal before half-time from a deflected John McGuinness shot put Roscommon 3-3 to 1-2 ahead at half-time.
Roscommon scored just three times in the second half, two from Curran and another from the impressive Kelly, but Leitrim were never likely to get to the tally they needed to qualify, and instead chased a win of any description.
Jack Kelly came off the bench to score a two-pointer and there were points for Ronan Fox and Paul Honeyman to reduce the gap further, but by the time Frankie McGuinness added their second goal, they only had one play left to level or win the game, which they were unable to ddo.
There was a strong breeze blowing at Mayo’s backs in the first half of their meeting with Galway at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park, but the wind had nothing to with Kobe McDonald’s two incredible goals in the second quarter.
Galway had started well with Ross Coen kicking an outstanding point into the wind and they would have been the happier team after 11 minutes, just a point adrift. In three minutes, however, Joey Holmes, Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne all sent two-pointers sailing over.
Nearly 18 minutes were gone when McDonald took possession at midfield and sprinted through 50 metres of open country before sending a wonderful low drive into the bottom left corner.
McDonald hammered in a second from a similar position before half-time to put 12 between the teams and while that wasn’t game over with the wind as strong as it was, it was a different story when Tom Lydon played in Dylan Flynn and his thunderbolt finish made it 3-13 to 0-4.
Galway finished strongly with Mikey Mulryan getting their goal and 1-7 in all, as they tried to rediscover some momentum before taking on Roscommon next week.
