Dublin end Offaly's reign as Leinster U20 champions, Laois surprise Wexford
Results
O'Neills Leinster U20 hurling championship quarter-finals
Laois 1-24 Wexford 1-18
Dublin 4-12 Offaly 0-17
Electric Ireland Munster minor football championship
Phase 1 final
Tipperary 1-16 Clare 1-14
Quarter-final
Cork v Kerry, Páirc Uí Rinn, 7pm.
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DUBLIN TOPPLED REGINING Leinster champions Offaly at the quarter-final stage of the O'Neills Leinster U20 hurling championship this afternoon.
Four goals proved central to Dublin's success in Newbridge as they finished with seven points to spare over a Faithful team that started with nine players who featured in last summer's All-Ireland final victory over Tipperary.
Offaly were in front 0-9 to 1-3 at the break, Callum Graham netting for Dublin. The same player raised a green flag early in the second half, while Dublin captain Ollie Gaffney also struck two second-half goals.
Free-taker Adam Screeney hit 0-8 for Offaly, Dan Ravenhill bagged 0-4, and Shane Rigney chipped in with 0-3, but Offaly were held off by a Dublin team who advanced.
The other quarter-final today saw another upset as Laois won by six points away to Wexford at Chadwicks Wexford Park. At one stagein the fiirst half, Laois were ahead 0-14 to 0-7, but Wexford countered to cut the gap to a single point, 0-15 to 1-11, at half-time with Conor Fanning scoring their goal.
Laois pushed on in the second half with Justin Duggan finding thhe net while top scorer Ben Deegan hit 0-10 as they ran out winners by six points.
The Leinster semi-finals will take place next Wednesday 14 May, Galway playing Laois and Kilkenny taking on Dublin.
Tipperary won Phase 1 of the Munster minor football championship with their 1-16 to 1-14 extra-time victory over Clare today in Thurles.
Ned O'Meara scored 1-7 for the winners, while Dylan McCormack scored a goal. Conor Burke was top scorer for Clare with 1-9.
Both sides advance to next Monday's Munster minor semi-finals against Cork and Kerry, that pair meeting at the quarter-final stage this evening.
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Irish Times
24 minutes ago
- Irish Times
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READ MORE But the perils of two referees in hurling was graphically illustrated on Saturday. While Thomas Walsh was in charge he took a minimalist approach to law and order, with obvious fouls going unpunished all over the field; when James Owens took over, however, he was more inclined to see an infringement and blow his whistle. The character of the game changed noticeably. Referee Thomas Walsh (centre) speaks with Limerick's Diarmaid Byrnes. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Hurling, especially in the championship, has become incredibly difficult to referee given the conditioning of intercounty players and their capacity to absorb contact, legal and illegal. Most teams are prepared to roll with the punches which encourages some referees to stay out of the way. In these cases, like with Walsh on Saturday, the rule book becomes more like a guide book. But how would the game have looked if Walsh was in charge of one half of the field and Owens was in charge of the other half? Could they have synchronised their styles enough for nobody to notice the difference? On Sunday, Johnny Murphy refereed the Leinster final in a conspicuously different manner to Walsh on Saturday night. As long as there is so much discrepancy between the styles of referees, placing two of them in charge of one game is out of the question. – Denis Walsh Cork thwart Limerick's full house Even for a team that has been to the verge of the historic five-in-a-row All-Ireland hurling titles, Limerick were hoping on Saturday to complete another championship landmark. Had they beaten Cork , it would have meant they had defeated all four of their Munster rivals in provincial finals during a run of what would have been a record seven successive titles. Those wins were Waterford in 2020, Tipperary in '21 and Clare for the past three years. It's not the first time Cork have intervened in this. 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