Louth hurlers win again - in Longford - to book a place in Kehoe Shield final

Kehoe Shield

Longford 0-14 Louth 0-18

A strong second half performance saw Louth inflict a four-point defeat on Longford hurlers at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park on Saturday and thus qualify for the first Kehoe Shield final.

There was very little between the sides in the first half. They were level on five occasions with Louth pulling ahead just before the break with points from Gerard McKeown and David Kettle to lead by 0-7 to 0-5.

Twice in the early exchanges of the second half Longford cut the gap to just one point, but Louth fired over four scores in a row to give themselves a comfortable cushion on their way to securing a final place against DCU/St. Pat’s Campus next weekend.

Longford tried hard, but could not overcome that deficit as youngster Darren Geoghegan guided Paul McCormack's men to a second successive victory.

Longford: Conor Gallagher; Johnny Casey, Gerard Moore, Paddy Corcoran; Paul Leonard, Karl Murray, Bart Hanley (0-1); Cathal Mullane (0-6, all frees), David Buckley; Cian Kavanagh, Michael Devlin, Paul Barden (0-1); Reuben Murray (0-2), Daniel Connell (0-1), John Mulhern (0-2)

Subs: Shane O’Brien (0-1), Michael Farrell, Maitiu O’Donohue

Louth: Donal Connolly; Ricky McKeown, Mike Lyons, Andrew McCrave; Stephen Kettle, Gerard Smyth, Andrew Smyth (0-2); Jamie McDonnell (0-2), James Costelloe (0-1); Darren Geoghegan (0-5, two frees & ’65), David Kettle (0-1), Peter Brennan; Gerry McKeown (0-4), David Stephenson, Robert Wallace

Subs: Matthew Fee, Conor Deane (0-2), Darren O’Hanrahan, Liam Molloy (0-1), Stephen Hoey

Referee: Shane Guinan (Offaly)