Electric Ireland Leinster MFC Semi-Finals

Dublin 2-10 Kildare 1-12 AET

Longford 0-11 Louth 0-10

There was incredible drama in the Electric Ireland Leinster minor football championship, with both Longford and Dublin securing their place in the provincial final by the smallest margin possible, setting up a rematch of the round robin game between the two sides in April, where Longford picked up a memorable 3-8 to 1-9 victory.

Louth were the visitors to Glennon Brothers Pearse Park tonight, with the Wee County bidding to make history by reaching provincial finals at senior, minor and U-20/U-21 level for the first time ever.

They looked good to do exactly that when they led by four points early in the second half, but they didn’t score again after that while James Hagan (two), Conor Doherty and Cian O’Donnell (two, including an injury time winner) kicked five points in a row to give the home side an 0-11 to 0-10 win and send them through to their first final since 2015.

Louth made an explosive start to the contest as they moved 0-6 to 0-1 in front by the start of the second quarter, with Cillian McQuillan and Andrew O’Reilly notching a brace each.

Three points from James Hagan in the run up to half-time brought Longford right back into the game and they got back to within a point with a score from O’Donnell after half-time, only for Tom Maguire, Conor Clinton and Luke Keenan to chip over points to put Louth back in the driving seat.

Longford never stopped creating chances however, and while they shot 10 wides and missed a couple of clearcut goal openings, they took over and with a boisterous crowd behind them, eventually pipped Louth at the post.

Dublin made an even more unlikely comeback at the Kildare Centre of Excellence at Hawkfield, where Senan Bolger and Shane Devane found the net inside the last three minutes to give the Dubs a 2-10 to 1-12 win over a shell-shocked home side.

Kildare had been the better side throughout, but they will live to regret the fact that they didn’t capitalize on their dominance enough. Luke Murray’s point late in the first half put them 0-6 to 0-5 ahead at the turn, though Kildare missed eight scoring chances in that opening half, and three Dublin points at half-time looked like a change of momentum.

Instead Kildare came roaring back into the game, building on Ronan Kelly’s goal eight minutes into the second half, and 0-4 off the bench from Austin Donegal and Dylan O’Dwyer should have seen them home, until Dublin delivered their late heroics.