London blitz Offaly to begin Tailteann in fine style

admin admin | 05-12 00:15

London had one of their greatest ever days as they roasted Offaly alive by 16 points at a sun-kissed Glenisk O'Connor Park

It was a shockingly poor performance by Offaly, who were a country mile off their championship intensity.

They never got going the whole day, never generated even a couple of minutes of real momentum and the fallout from this defeat and performance will not be pretty in the Faithful County.

Through home eyes, it was quite shameful but to concentrate on this is to do a disservice to London, who played some superb football on the day. The Exiles were the better side from start to finish, they were brilliant once they got a true scent of victory in the second half and the fact that they were not one bit flattered by their 14-point winning margin shows how superior they were.

London really put it up to a very stagnant Offaly in the first half and fully deserved to lead by 0-08 to 0-06 at half-time.

Cathal Donoghue had given Offaly the lead after one minute but everything London touched turned to gold in the next few minutes. They got four points in a row, three of them from Ciaran Diver and one from Ruari Rafferty to lead by 0-04 to 0-01 after eight minutes.

Offaly really struggled to break down a packed London defence but without doing anything special, they got the next three to level it up after 20 minutes. The equaliser came from a Jack Bryant free after full back David Dempsey had been black carded while Keith O'Neill was unlucky to have an 11th minute goal disallowed for overcarrying.

London responded well, breaking forward at pace and three in a row but them 0-07 to 0-04 up after 30 minutes. A Dylan Hyland point and Eoin Carroll mark brought the gap down to a point before Daniel Clarke's point gave London that half time lead.

With the wind to come, Offaly supporters still believed the tide would turn in the second half but within a couple of minutes of the restart, their situation became crisis. Aidan McLoughlin and the outstanding Shay Rafter kicked the opening two points in two minutes to put London four ahead and the visitors never looked like losing from here.

They went onto outscore Offaly by 2-12 to 0-06 in the second half and some of their football in the closing quarter was a joy to watch as they pulled the trigger on their traumatised opponents. Offaly's poverty is shown by the fact that they never managed two scores on the trot in the second half and never looked like rescuing this one.

They got the gap back to three points on three occasions but each time, London got the next one and when shocking defending allowed Stephen Dornan get the final touch for a 49th minute goal, it was theirs to lose.

That goal gave them a 1-13 to 0-9 lead and they were 1-17 to 0-12 ahead when man of the match Ciaran Diver got their second goal in the 65th minute.

Offaly had thrown in the towel before this while sub Dan Molloy was red carded just a minute after coming on in the 67th minute for a challenge that saw Michael Miller receive treatment. London won pulling up and if anything could have got in for late goals that would have added to Offaly's humiliation.

Offaly: Ian Duffy (0-01, '45'); Lee Pearson, David Dempsey, John Furlong; Cormac Egan, Peter Cunningham (0-01), Rory Egan; Eoin Carroll (0-01, m) , Cathal Donoghue (0-01); Dylan Hyland (0-04, 2f), Cathal Flynn, Jordan Hayes; Cian Farrell, Keith O'Neill, Jack Bryant (0-02, 1f).

Subs: Jack O'Brien for Rory Egan (42m), Nigel Dunne (0-02, 1f) for Flynn (44m), Ruari McNamee for Farrell (47m), Nathan Poland for Donoghue (50m), Dan Molloy for Dempsey (66m).

London: Andrew Walsh; Eoin Walsh (0-01), Daire Rooney, Ciaran McKeon; Oran Kerr, Shay Rafter (0-04), Aidan McLoughlin (0-01); Stephen Dornan (1-01), Liam Gallagher (0-01, f); Michael Carroll (0-01), Daniel Clarke (0-02), Ciaran Diver (1-05, 3f); Joshua Obahor (0-02), Ruari Rafferty (0-02), Fiontan Eastwood.

Subs: Michael Miller for Kerr (57m), Cahir Healy for McLoughlin (60m), Tighe Barry for McKeon (63m), DJ O'Flaherty for Rafter (63m), Joseph McGill for Rafferty (71m),

Referee: Derek O'Mahoney (Tipperary).

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