Louth 1-17

Antrim 1-11

LOUTH HAVE KEPT their name in the All Ireland football championship draw after seeing off the challenge of Antrim in Drogheda today.

The Wee County proved the more clinical side in the end and all bar one point of their half time tally of 1-7 was created in open play.

Antrim’s Championship ends despite considerable spells of dominance at the Gaelic Ground and they will be left to rue a string of early wides which handed impetus to the hosts.

After the kick-off for this was delayed by 10 minutes, Louth reacted best to disrupted plans with Colm Judge swinging over a fine opening score.

Antrim’s response was positive. And they would dominate the middle third in the early portion of the game. However, they couldn’t make that work count on the scoreboard as Conor Murray landed their only score from their first five attempts.

Ciaran Byrne would soon give Louth the lead again as the Wee County made the most of their few early opportunities, but that was the score to give the hosts a rhythm as they stretched the lead out to 0-4 to 0-1 before Byrne added a goal to his tally thanks to a fine turn and finish in the 14th minute.

A brace of frees from Paddy Cunningham gave the Saffrons hope again and the playmaker added one from play to narrow the difference to just the goal and signal game on.

Derek Maguire stemmed the flow to make a four-point cushion and a Shane Lennon free after another fine Byrne score would cancel out Cunningham’s response to make sure that cushion remained at the break with the scores 1-7 to 0-6.

Louth began the second period even brighter than the first with Lennon and Ronan Carroll pointing either side of a Brian White free. Yet they eased the foot off the pedal again and the seven-point lead was scythed down to three when Michael Pollock made Antrim’s momentum count with a 47th minute goal.

In the remaining 20 minutes Louth managed to recover again. Lennon began to find space and chipped in with some timely scores to keep Antrim at bay.

Despite the win, Louth supporters left with puzzled faces as goalkeeper Neil Gallagher was given the line for an incident unseen by all except referee Ciaran Branagan.

Teams

Louth: Neil Gallagher; Padraig Rath, Dessie Finnegan, John Bingham; Conor McGuinness, Derek Crilly, Adrian Reid; Paddy Keenan, Brian Donnelly; Conor Rafferty, Brian White, Ciaran Byrne, Derek Maguire, Shane Lennon, Colm Judge.

Subs: R Finnegan (for C McGeuinness 15 mins), R Carroll (for B Donnelly 30 mins) D Clarke (for C Byrne 49 mins). P Smith (for C Rafferty 50 mins) J Flanagan (for Darren Clarke 66 mins).

Antrim: Ricky Johnston; Dermot McCann, David McGuickan, Kevin O’Boyle, Justin Crozier, John Carron, Conor Murray; Michael Herron, Brendan Herron; Paddy Cunningham, Ryan Murray, Niall Delargy, Dermot McAleese, Colum Duffin, Patrick McBride.

Subs: P McBride (for A Healey 53 mins). R Murray (for S McVeigh 58 mins), D McAleese (for M Herron 62 mins), N Delargy (for B Herron 66 mins).

Louth scorers: Colm Judge (0-1), Brian White (0-2, 0-1 free), Ciaran Byrne (1-2) Conor Rafferty (0-2), Derek Maguire (0-1), Shane Lennon (0-5, 0-1 free), Ronan Carroll (0-2) Paddy Keenan (0-1), Ray Finnegan (0-1)

Antrim scorers::  Paddy Cunningham (0-6, 0-4 frees) Conor Murray (0-1), Michael Herron (0-1), Brendan Herron (0-1) Michael Pollock (1-1), Kevin O’Boyle (0-1).

Referee: Ciaran Branagan (Down).

Double goal burst puts Fermanagh on course for victory over Westmeath