Round-up: Weekend's Allianz HL D4 action
A general view of Kingspan Breffni. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Allianz Hurling League Division Four
Cavan 2-20 Lancashire 1-15
Sligo 2-34 Warwickshire 0-3
Leitrim 1-19 Monaghan 1-11
Cavan avoided a slip up against Lancashire at Kingspan Breffni, but they had to sweat a little before making sure of their second win of this year’s Allianz League campaign after Lancashire cut a comfortable 12-point lead to a much more nerve-jangling four in the space of seven minutes early in the final quarter.
Ollie Bellew’s side couldn’t have enjoyed a happier start as they used the breeze to put 1-5 on the board inside six minutes of play. Four times in the opening 150 seconds they raised white flags with midfielders Jack McGuinness and Dillon Mulligan both on the board, and when a slick team move the length of the pitch ended with Mark Moffett whipping the ball to the net, there was already a decent gap between the sides.
Lancashire leaned heavily on Pádraic Burke’s freetaking with six of their nine first half points coming from his dead ball prowess, but Cavan’s Seán Keating was no less prolific and a second goal from Moffett pushed the gap out to double figures by half-time, then 2-18 to 0-12 with 15 minutes remaining.
Billy Donnellan’s goal kicked off a run of 2-2 in seven minutes for Lancashire, Burke their goalscorer from another free, and when he split the uprights to bring his tally to 1-10 in the 69th minute, another score or two from Lancashire could have changed the game completely. Instead it fell to Thomas Leonard to hit the insurance score that would see Cavan over the line.
The game in Inniskeen between Monaghan and Leitrim was effectively a promotion eliminator, with both sides coming into the fixture after losing two of their first three matches.
Philip Burgess hit two early points for the visitors who had the better of the early exchanges, but a Brendan McQuaid goal undid that work and back-to-back points from Jack Guinan nudged Monaghan into the lead.
Leitrim’s second quarter was effectively the winning of the game as they overwhelmed Monaghan during that phase, outscoring their hosts by 1-8 to 0-2. Colm Canning hit 1-1 while Offaly native Daniel Miller continued his outstanding form since making his transfer with two of his four points from play.
The lead was out to ten points midway through the second half before Monaghan reduced the gap by hitting four of the last six points.
It was one-way traffic in Tubbercurry where Sligo were ruthless from start to finish against a Warwickshire side that travelled to the South Sligo venue short of a handful of their most influential players.
They weren’t going to get any mercy from Sligo who hit five points in the first five minutes and didn’t let up from there. Robert O’Kelly Lynch (0-11), Thomas Cawley (1-3), Andrew Kilcullen (0-6) and Conor Hanniffy (1-5) all racked up the scores to bring their scoring difference to an average of over 20 points per game across four matches.
