Luke Connolly's 2-5 haul in Portlaoise fired club kingpins Nemo Rangers through to yet another AIB All-Ireland club football final.

Battle-hardened by four long years on the road, Slaughtneil chiselled out an Ulster Club SFC quarter-final win in the most pressing of circumstances at Celtic Park.

Ballyboden St Endas were made to bend low to secure a first All-Ireland final spot that looked beyond them for so much of the second half of normal time.

Meath 0-14 Cavn 0-12: Meath took the honours against neighbours Cavan at Pairc Tailteann but the spoils were shared out elsewhere as victories for Down and Roscommon ensured top tier football for both in 2016.

Donegal 1-4, Monaghan 0-9: At half-time yesterday at O’Donnell Park in Letterkenny, the stadium announcer informed the crowd that Mark English had won silver in the 800m at the European Indoor Athletic Championships in Prague.

Donegal 1-4, Monaghan 0-9:

Donegal 3-16 Antrim 0-12

Kildare belied much of the pre-match portents of doom to crush Louth in Croke Park and cruise to a Leinster semi-final date with either Meath or Carlow.

Dublin won a second All-Ireland U21 Football Championship title in three years with a devastating attacking performance at O’Connor Park in Tullamore.

Louth 1-12 Meath 2-10

St Pat’s, Maghera (Derry) 1-12 Omagh CBS (Tyrone) 1-08

Monaghan 2-20 Fermanagh 0-11

Ballinderry 3-10 Ballinascreen 2-07

Cavan 1-17 London 1-8

Wicklow 1-15 Longford 0-16

Kildare 2-05 Galway 2-10

Meath 1-17 Sligo 2-12

Cavan 1-10 Monaghan 0-5

Kilcoo (Down) 0-13 Ballybay (Monaghan) 0-07

Dublin 0-14 Meath 1-05

Leitrim 0-13 Wicklow 0-10

On a weekend of championship shocks, the unfortunate reality for once mighty Meath was that this stalemate probably wasn’t one of them.

Carlow 1-12 Meath 1-12

Cavan retained their Ulster U21 football championship title with a battling display at Brewster Park last night.

Cavan 1-10 Tyrone 0-10

A game that began with Mayo as overwhelming favourites to maintain their unbeaten record ended with Down tearing up the form book and the referee being escorted from the field by local stewards.

Paddy Keenan was central to Louth winning this low-key Division 2 tie at Haggardstown yesterday.

BURREN’S ability to get scores at vital times saw them edge wasteful Latton in a very entertaining Ulster Club SFC semi-final at the Athletic Grounds, Armagh, yesterday.

MONAGHAN champions Latton enjoyed their first Ulster Club SFC success when defeating Glenswilly in the quarter-final at Ballybofey.

Longford 2-11 Roscommon 1-8

IT took almost four hours of energy-sapping action to separate them, but Tyrone finally triumphed to qualify for the Ulster U21 Football Championship semi-finals.

TWO stunning Caolan Mooney goals secured a second successive MacRory Cup title for St Colman’s Newry in a compelling final at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh yesterday.

Tyrone 0-26 St Mary’s 0-10