The Mayo u21s came up short against Roscommon once again at the u21 grade in Elvery’s MacHale Park on Wednesday night, with the visitors running out 11 point winners at the end of the hour. Mayo couldn’t have asked for a better start when Evan Regan drove the back of the net from close range after two minutes putting Mayo 1-0 to 0-1 in front. Mayo held on to the lead until the 17th minute with Conor O’Shea kicking a huge score and Regan adding a point from a free after the Breaffy man had been fouled. Diarmuid Murtagh who finished up with 1-5 kicked Roscommon’s first two points of the game and had a hand in Mark Nally’s goal 17 minutes in that levelled the game up. From then on it was all Roscommon and they added on two more goals before the break with Murtagh finishing to the net after the Mayo defence had been broken far to easily and Donnie Smith added a penalty right on half time after Matthew Flanagan (whose still a minor ) gave away the spot kick. That goal left Roscommon leading 3-5 to 1-3 at the break and had the large travelling faithful inside MacHale Park in full voice before at the break.
Any chance that Mayo had of getting back into the game were dashed as early as the first minute of the second half when Donie Smith cracked home a great goal after he beat his man to easily to the ball. The Rossies’ added on five more points before the end as Mayo tried in vain to create a goal chance to bring them back into the contest. For Roscommon they move on to Sligo in the semi-final, for Mayo the quest for a first Connacht title at this grade since 2009 goes on until 2015 at least.
Scores
Mayo: E Regan 1-3 (2fs ), C O'Shea, A Gallagher, J Shaughnessey, D O'Connor, E Collins 0-1 each.
Roscommon: D Murtagh 1-5 (4fs ), D Smith 2-0 (1-0 pen ), M Nally 1-0, E Smith 0-2, M Healy, U Harney, C Kilcline 0-1 each
Mayo: M Flanagan; K Lynch, L Kitterick, A Butler; C Burke S Coen, P O'Hora; Prendergast, D O'Connor; G O'Donnell, M Plunkett, A Gallagher; J Shaughnessy, E Regan, C O'Shea. Subs: E Collins for O'Hora (23 ), S Conroy for Plunkett (h-t ), A Jordan for Prendergast (h-t ), M Hall for Burke (BC, 40 ), S Regan for Shaughnessey (55 ).
Roscommon: C Lavin; D Murray, S Mullooly, C Kenny; C Daly, F Kelly, F Sweeney; T O'Rourke, T Corcoran; C Kilcline, M Healy, E Smith; D Murtagh, M Nally, D Smith Subs: U Harney for Corcoran (57 ), R Davey for Sweeney 40 ), S Killoran for O Rourke (46 ). K Finn for Nally (49 ). J Earley for Kilcoyne (55 ).
Ref: E O'Grady (Leitrim ).
