Aaron Brown stars as Kildare dethrone All-Ireland U20 football champions Offaly

The Kildare captain, and star of the 2019 Leinster minor winning team, had been struggling with a hamstring injury

Aaron Browne came off the bench and kicked 1-2 as Kildare dethroned All-Ireland U20 champions Offaly in Tullamore. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

EirGrid Leinster U20 football championship

Kildare 2-11 Offaly 0-15 

Aaron Browne came off the bench and kicked 1-2 in the final quarter as Kildare dethroned All-Ireland U20 champions Offaly in Tullamore.

The Kildare captain, and star of the 2019 Leinster minor winning team, has been struggling with a hamstring injury and missed last week’s quarter-final win against Laois but came on to great effect just at a time in the game when Offaly were threatening to take control.

It was nip and tuck in the early stages and the sides had been level on three occasions before Adam Fanning put Kildare 0-4 to 0-3 ahead in the 10th minute.

Wonderfully persistent play by Dean O’Donoghue created Kildare’s first goal in the 14th minute when just about kept the ball in play on the endline and hooked it across goal where Daniel Lynam palmed the ball into the empty net.

Offaly responded brilliantly and pinned Kildare into their own half for the next 12 minutes and scored five points without reply to go 0-8 to 1-4 ahead.

Kildare managed to get back on level terms just before half time but Offaly started strongly after the restart and with a strong wind at their backs and kicked the first three points.

Although all the Kildare substitutes played the part, nobody did more than Browne and after he had scored a point he put Kildare back into the lead with a well-taken goal in the 50th minute after being set up by Ryan Burke. Goalkeeper Cormac Barker then tagged on a 45 metre free to push Kildare two points clear.

Offaly were able to cut that lead back to one point on two occasions in the final stages but crucially, Kildare were able to relieve the pressure with well-taken scores from Browne and Fanning and they saw out six additional minutes without a real threat on their goal.

KILDARE: C Barker 0-1f ; H O'Neill, D O'Donoghue, M Maguire; A Boyle, J McGrath, T Gill; B Gibbons, L Killian; N O'Regan, D Lynam 1-0, A Fanning 0-2; D Swords 0-1, S Farrell 0-1, E Bagnall 0-3 (1m, 1f). Subs: A Browne 1-2 for Swords, 38; R Burke for Gibbons, 47; J McKevitt for O’Regan, 49; J Dalton 0-1 for Bagnall, 59; A Conneely for Lynam, 60+2.

OFFALY: S O'Toole; L Pearson, D Finneran, T Hyland; C Ryan, J Furlong, J Sheerin; M Tynan 0-2, A Strong; F Dempsey, H Plunkett 0-3fs, M Dalton 0-1; C Delaney 0-5 (4th, 1’45), K O'Neill, D Flynn 0-1. Subs: J Guing for Plunkett, 48; E Murphy for Dalton, 60+1.

REFEREE: P Maguire (Longford).