Dooley delight as Offaly’s team effort starting to bear fruit

OFFALY’S last-quarter fightback against Galway in Sunday’s drawn Leinster semi-final showed tremendous character, a magnificent display of guts and bloody-mindedness reminiscent of the Faithful County’s best days.

Four points behind in the 45th minute after a three-minute Galway blitz had yielded 2-2 without reply, a man down after the straight red card issued to wing-forward Derek Molloy for a frontal hit on a Galway defender, all the signs pointed towards an end to the Offaly challenge, a comprehensive Galway win in line with what the bookmakers predicted.

Instead, and for those final 25 minutes, the youngsters of Offaly taking charge, outscoring the favourites by eight points to four to take the game to a most unlikely replay, next Saturday evening in Portlaoise.