Belmont cut loose in second-half to book St Rynaghs clash

Belmont produced their best performance of the summer on Saturday, beating Drumcullen 3-26 to 2-12 to secure their place in the Offaly SHC quarter-finals.

A Leon Fox goal shortly before half time gave them a narrow 1-8 to 0-9 interval lead but they cut loose in the second-half and struck some fantastic scores, Fox (1-5), Joe Maher (1-4), Paul Egan (0-4) and Colin Egan (0-3) all scoring freely. They now play St Rynaghs, who rounded off their campaign with a 2-24 to 0-14 win over Kinnitty, in the last eight.

Tullamore produced the shock of the round when stunning Birr. Late scores from Cormac Martin, Nigel Bracken and Niall McCabe helped them come from five behind to a 0-16 to 0-14 win in Kilcormac. Tullamore were already condemned to the relegation playoffs but Birr manager Johnny Pilkington will be hugely worried by his team’s anaemic second-half show in advance of a quarter-final meeting with Seir Kieran, who beat Brosna Gaels 2-19 to 2-13 at the weekend.

Kilcormac-Killoughey and Coolderry were both assured of progression to the knockout stages but that didn’t prevent them from serving up a classic encounter at Rath, where Kilcormac-Killoughey prevailed 2-19 to 1-18. The holders have now gone 22 games unbeaten in the Offaly SHC and had to show plenty of character as they scored eight of the last 10 points to come through.

Kilcormac-Killoughey will play intermediate champions Ballinamere in the quarter-finals and will be heavily fancied after Ballinamere sustained their third successive loss, losing out 3-19 to 0-15 to Shinrone. Seán Cleary, Michael Cordial and Donal Morkan were the goalscorers for Shinrone, who were never really tested despite putting in a somewhat disjointed performance.