Leinster Senior Hurling Championship

Dublin 2-24 Offaly 0-13

By John Harrington at Parnell Park

Dublin have preserved their Liam MacCarthy Cup status while Offaly will play in the Joe McDonagh Cup next year after this afternoon's one-sided Leinster SHC match at Parnell Park.

Goals either side of half-time from Dublin’s Paul Ryan and Fergal Whitely were the killer blows from an Offaly point of view, and the second-half was little more than a Dublin procession thereafter.

Even if Dublin beat Galway in their final match next weekend they have no chance of making the knock-out stages of the Championship because they’ll lose out to both Wexford and Kilkenny on the head to head rule in Leinster were they to finish level on four points each with either of them.

There might not be much riding on that match against the Tribesmen so, but you can be sure that Dublin manager Pat Gilroy will be keen to end the Championship on a high to further build on an encouraging campaign for his young team.

They won this match comfortably in the end but they were guilty of some slack hurling and poor shooting for much of the first-half which kept Offaly in the game.

Dublin led by just two points – 0-7 to 0-5 – when the match jack-knifed on a real turning point after 30 minutes.

Offaly’s Sean Ryan had a good goal chance but he stopped in his tracks by a desperately scrambling Dublin defence, and when the ball was cleared to wing-back Chris Crummey he fired over a brilliant point from long-distance.

So instead of being a point to the good, Offaly were now trailing by four.

Dublin finally showed a ruthless edge in the first-half injury time as they struck for a quick-fire 1-2 from play that helped them into a 1-10 to 0-5 half-time advantage.

The brilliant Crummey – who finished the game with four points from play as did his fellow Dublin wing-back Shane Barrett – created the goal with another monster clearance from defence.

The ball broke to Paul Ryan and after turning onto his left he fired a brilliant drove to the roof of Eoghan Cahill’s net.

Offaly needed a fast start if they were to claw their way back into the game, but instead it was Dublin who turned on the afterburners.

Fergal Whitley scored their second-goal of the match with a nice top-corner finish, and they followed that up with four points in quick succession as Liam Rushe and Conal Keaney thundered into the game.

As Offaly wilted, Dublin could afford to ease off the throttle in the final 20 minutes of the match and won the game pulling up.

Scorers for Dublin: Paul Ryan 1-5 (4f) Shane Barrett 0-4, Fiontan McGibb 1-1, Chris Crummey 0-4, Conal Keaney 0-2, Liam Rushe 0-2, Jake Malone 0-2, Cian Boland 0-2, Rian McBride 0-1, Fiontan McGibb 0-1.

Scorers for Offaly: Joe Bergin 0-4 (4f), Shane Dooley 0-2 (2f) Dan Currams 0-2, Paddy Murphy 0-2, Kevin Dunne 0-1, Eoghan Cahill 0-1 (1f), James Gorman 0-1.

DUBLIN: Alan Nolan; Paddy Smyth, Cian O’Callaghan, Eoghan O’Donnell; Shane Barrett, Sean Moran, Chris Crummey; Rian McBride, Jake Malone; Fiontan McGibb, Conal Keaney, Danny Sutcliffe; Fergal Whitely, Liam Rushe, Paul Ryan. **Subs: **Cian Boland for Fergal Whitely (51), Tomas Connolly for Rian McBride (55), David Treacy for Conal Keaney (57), Johnny McCaffrey for Fiontan McGibb (63), Paul Winters for Liam Rushe (64)

OFFALY: Eoghan Cahill; Tom Spain, Ben Conneely, David O’Toole Greene; Dermot Shortt, Pat Camon, David King; Dan Currams, Damien Egan; Tommy Geraghty, Colin Egan, Shane Kinsella; Sean Ryan, Conor Mahon, Joe Bergin. Subs: Shane Dooley for Sean Ryan (41), Paddy Murphy for Damien Egan, Ronan Hughes for Colin Egan, Kevin Dunne for Shane Kinsella (all 48), James Gorman for Joe Bergin (55)

Ref: Colm Lyons (Cork)