Ryan O'Donnell's hat-trick sees Galway overcome Offaly in Leinster U20 Hurling Championship opener
Ryan O’Donnell stole the show with a decisive hat-trick for the Tribesmen at Duggan Park. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.
Adam Screeney made his first competitive appearance of 2025 when he came off the bench for Offaly midway through the second half in last night’s Leinster U-20 championship clash in Ballinasloe, but it was a Galway corner-forward, Ryan O’Donnell, who stole the show with a decisive hat-trick for the Tribesmen.
A full house of 3,500 made their way to Duggan Park for the first game in the Leinster U-20 championship to ever take place on Galway soil, and for the majority of the first half, they saw a fiercely competitive contest that featured some excellent scores.
Conor Doyle and Paddy Mac Cárthaigh got the highlight reel points in a game that really exploded into life when Galway pounced on a misplaced James Mahon pass to score the opening goal from Jason Rabbitte.
Offaly’s response was outstanding, with Donal Shirley striding through the middle of the field to split the posts in the middle of a run of five unanswered points, making it 0-9 to 1-5.
It was a one-point Galway advantage coming up to half-time when the contest was transformed by two O’Donnell goals in a minute.
The Oranmore-Maree man was first to a breaking ball to whip the first to the net from close range, while he picked out the top corner with a splendid finish after catching and spinning past Andrew Hogan just before the interval, making it 3-9 to 0-11.
Dan Ravenhill’s scoring threat from distance kept Offaly in the game while Shane Rigney was much more involved after coming out from corner-forward to operate in the half-forward line, and when his score from 60 metres made it 3-12 to 0-16 with just over ten minutes gone in the second half, the Offaly-dominated capacity crowd of 3,500 really started to get into the game.
Once again it was O’Donnell who came to the fore, once again getting behind his tackler and getting in on goal, beating Liam Hoare with a batted finish.
Adam Screeney’s first competitive action of the year gave another flicker of hope to the Faithful County but the mercurial attacker showed all the signs of his injury and his long layoff, and instead it was Galway who finished stronger with Donagh Fahy and Donnacha Campbell firing over late points.
R O’Donnell 3-0, R Burke 0-9 (0-7f, 0-2 65s), J Rabbitte 1-2, A Niland 0-2, D Fahy 0-2f, P Mac Cárthaigh 0-1, D Campbell 0-1.
D Ravenhill 0-12 (0-9f, 0-1 65), P Lyons 0-2, S Rigney 0-2, C Doyle 0-1, D Shirley 0-1, E Bailey O’Brien 0-1.
D Fahy; S Murphy, B O’Donovan, C Lawless; E O’Reilly, J Donnellan, G King; C Killeen, P Mac Cárthaigh; A Niland, R Burke, C Gilligan; R O’Donnell, J Rabbitte, B Callanan.
G Maher for Killeen (43), D Campbell for Gilligan (43), V Morgan for Callanan (53), M Fallon for Mac Cárthaigh (57), T Blake for King (60), M Burke for O’Reilly (60+2).
L Hoare; J Mahon, A Hogan, R Kelly; J O’Sullivan, B Kavanagh, D Shirley; L Kavanagh, N Furlong; C Robinson, D Ravenhill, C Doyle; C Egan, P Lyons, S Rigney.
E Bailey O’Brien for Egan (half-time), A Cleary for Robinson (40), A Screeney for Hogan (46), M Mulrooney for Ravenhill (59).
Caymon Flynn (Wexford).
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