Determined Cavan see off Longford to book their place in the Cup Final

Cavan 1-20 Longford 1-14

We were treated to a thriller in the first of the Gerry Reilly Leinster U16 FT Semi-Finals played on Sunday evening in Millbrook, Oldcastle.  Longford had 3 points (2 from play) on the scoreboard before they got their first point from a free. Cavan were creating goal chances but were denied by Longford ‘keeper, Conor Kelly. Jack Duggan’s goal for Longford had them leading by 1-4 to 0-4. Cavan were down to 14 after a red card and they were facing an uphill battle. Despite this, they continued to create chances. Cavan’s 4 unanswered points had the sides level at the break on a scoreline of Cavan 0-10 to Longford’s 1-7.

On the resumption points were exchanged on two occasions before Darryl McGurren pointed to give Cavan the lead for the first time, which they never relinquished. Cavan stretched their lead to 3 points, but Longford were not giving up and reduced the margin to a single point. Longford did have a great goal chance, but the shot sailed over the bar.  The heavens opened with torrential rain making play more difficult. Nikodim McKiernan’s goal deep into injury time insured victory for Cavan. Credit to both teams for a great game of football.

Cavan’s Caoimhin McGovern was presented with the’Man of the match’ award by Kathryn Cooke (Briody Bedding Limited – Sponsor)

Scorers for Cavan: Finntan O’Reilly (0-9,2f), Darryl McGurren (0-4,2f), Nikodim McKiernan (1-0), Caoimhin McGovern (0-3), Mathew McGahern (0-2,f), Jack Mooney & Sean McEvoy (0-1) each
Scorers for Longford: Jack Duggan (1-7,3f), Keelan McGann (0-3), Dylan Coady, Aaron Farrell, Seadhna Ryan & Sean McCormack (0-1) each

Ref: Joe Curran (Meath)