Offaly overcome loss of three senior stars to beat Westmeath

Offaly senior football panellist Cathal Donoghue exploded into life in the second half with a series of excellent points

Cathal Kiely’s seven first-half points helped Offaly to a 1-11 to 2-5 interval lead

Leinster U20HC round 1: Offaly 2-22 Westmeath 3-9

Despite losing three senior panellists on the day of the game and shipping two early goals in the first half of their clash with Westmeath, Offaly U20 manager Gary Cahill was still delighted that his players got the chance to get their championship underway, despite the impending Level 5 lockdown.

“The way we had planned for the last couple of weeks, we brought in five or six lads to be safe, and once it was three out, there was three in,” he said afterwards.

“For these young lads, this is their downtime, this is what they want to do. Even when there was doubt, I said we were going to play this game.”

Cathal Kiely’s seven first-half points helped Offaly to a 1-11 to 2-5 interval lead, but with the wind set to favour Westmeath after half-time, the game was still in the balance at that stage.

However, that all changed when Westmeath missed a couple of key dead balls, and Offaly senior football panellist Cathal Donoghue exploded into life with a series of excellent points, before a third Cathal, Clara’s O’Meara, confirmed the win with their second goal.

Scorers for Offaly: C Kiely 0-12 (0-7fs), C Donoghue 0-5, L O’Connor 1-1, C O’Meara 1-0, P Cantwell, K McDermott, L Nolan, L Kavanagh 0-1 each.

Scorers for Westmeath: R Keyes 1-3 (1-0 pen, 0-3fs), D McGrath 1-2, M Cunningham 1-0, O McCabe, E Daly, C McKeogh, P Weir Norris 0-1 each.

OFFALY: E Cleary; R Carty, C Butler, A Flanagan; J Screeney, P Cantwell, D Maher; L Nolan, K McDermott; C Kiely, C Donoghue, DJ McLoughlin; L Kavanagh, C O’Meara, L O’Connor.

Subs: M Watkins for McLoughlin (45), A Brazil for Cantwell (49), D Murray for O’Meara (54), C Flynn for O’Connor (60).

WESTMEATH: C Lynch; L Moran, F Brennan, C Regan; E Kiernan, J Gillen, E Burke; E Ahearn, J Tumelty; L Moore, R Keyes, E Daly; D McGrath, C Murphy, O McCabe.

Subs: C McKeogh for Daly (34), P Weir Norris for Tumelty (42), B McCarthy for Murphy (48), J Coffey for Regan (49), M Cunningham for Moore (53).

Referee: C Mooney (Dublin).