Sport

Dublin at a canter

Leinster MFC First round/Dublin 3-12 Wexford 0-4: It was all so easy for Dublin as they outclassed a poor Wexford side in the…

Mon May 17 2004 - 01:00

Leinster MFC First round/Dublin 3-12 Wexford 0-4: It was all so easy for Dublin as they outclassed a poor Wexford side in the opening defence of their Leinster minor football title at Wexford Park on Saturday.

With this win Dublin set up a repeat of last year's All-Ireland final clash with Laois but know they will have to produce much more to curb the All-Ireland champions in two weeks' time.

Playing into the breeze, Dublin tore the home defence to shreds within two minutes as Colin Daly and Dermot Connolly combined to set up Tomás Brady, who tapped the ball to an unguarded net. Wexford did respond with fifth and sixth-minute points, but those proved their only scores of the half, as Dublin's Adam Coughlan and Robert Fitzgerald shut them out.

Dublin went on to add five points and led 1-5 to 0-2 at the interval.

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After the break Blaine Kelly's 37th-minute goal stretched the lead. Wexford, amazingly, had gone 36 minutes without a score when Patrick Codd got a 43rd-minute point.

Dublin cruised through the closing 10 minutes, capping their victory with Dermot Connolly's 60th-minute goal from a penalty, and would have scored more but for the excellent goalkeeping of Danny Redmond.

In Saturday's other games in the Leinster minor football championship, All-Ireland champions Laois beat Meath 2-15 to 1-5 at Páirc Tailteann, Navan; Westmeath and Offaly ended level, 1-11 to 3-5, in Mullingar; and Kildare beat Longford 1-11 to 0-9 at Newbridge.

DUBLIN: R Kelleher; A Hubbard, A Coughlan, J McCaffrey; J O'Brien, R Fitzgerald, I Kavanagh; K Moran, P Flynn; C Daly, T Diamond (0-1), B Kelly (1-6, 5 frees); D Connolly (1-1, 1-0 pen), T Brady (1-0), R Cleere (0-3, 2 frees). Subs: P Andrews (0-1) for Daly; K Connolly for Cleere: K Nolan for O'Brien; S O'Rourke for Kelly; M McAuley for Brady.

WEXFORD: D Redmond; D Kehoe, C Atkinson, J Wadding; C Murphy, L Kent, A Doyle; D O'Sullivan, R Quinlivan; P Codd (0-1), I Murphy, D Kehoe (0-1); A Stafford, P Byrne, C Sinnott (0-1). Subs: B Malone for Atkinson; A Griffith for Sinnott; S Roche for O'Sullivan; D Reck (0-1) for Stafford.

Referee: C Costello (Offaly).