MAYO GOT THROUGH to the semi-finals of the All-Ireland Minor Football Championship, beating Tipperary 0-19 to 1-8 at Croke Park on Saturday.

The tone for the entire match was set in the first 15 minutes, with Mayo taking a quick 0-4 to 0-1 lead through two strikes from Adam Gallagher and further points by Shane Hennelly and wing-back Patrick Durcan.

Diarmuid O’Connor and Hennelly put even more daylight between the teams, while the Premier struggled – Colman Kennedy’s wide emblematic of their early woes.

Cian Burke, James Quinn and Eoghan Lavin heaped even more misery on Tipp, who finally registered their second point of the game through John McGrath.

Finally, the game became something of a contest when the first goal of the game was scored on 23 minutes.

Ian Fahey drove in a free that was going wide but fisted back into play by Tom Kirwan. It fell for Philip Quirke who showed the composure to sidestep his man and blast a shot to the net – just what Tipperary needed.

Lavin and Quirke went on to swap points before the whistle, leaving it as 0-10 to 1-3 half way through.

Gallagher and McGrath kept the difference at four points once the sides had re-emerged, but Gallagher was proving the undoing of the Tipp defence and his free on 41 minutes put five points in the difference.

The sending off of Steven O’Brien for an off the ball incident spelled further disaster for Tipperary but they did manage to claw back two quickfire points through TJ Ryan and Kennedy.

Patrick Durcan and Conor Byrne – a Mayo substitute – restored the barrier between two sides and, with just four minutes remaining, that would soon be that.

James Quinn and Darren Duffy grabbed the final scores of the game, Mayo ending the game as they had started it.

As It Happened: All-Ireland MFC quarter-final, Tipperary v Mayo >