Longford Town 1 Sligo Rovers 1
Spectacular goals from Kevin O’Connor and David Cawley provided the highlights as Longford and Sligo were happy with a point apiece at the City Calling Stadium.
With teenagers Gray Boylan and Jake Dykes again lining up in their defence, Sligo edged the early exchanges with Morten Nielsen bringing a diving save from Paul Skinner with a left-foot drive from distance on nine minutes.
Headed away
Inspired by Ayman Ben Mohamed’s play out wide, however, Longford soon settled, the winger having a goal-bound shot bravely headed away by Dinny Corcoran.
Sligo then struggled to clear a Pat Sullivan free kick into their area on the half hour and were happy to see Pat Flynn’s deflected shot comfortably gathered by Richard Brush.
A dour game was then really sparked to life on 40 minutes with a wonderful strike by Longford. Little appeared on when the home side were awarded a free kick after John Russell fouled Ben Mohamed some 40 yards out.
Stephen Rice took it quickly and O’Connor hit a long-range, right-footed shot that dipped perfectly into the top left corner of Brush’s net.
Sligo responded with a superb equaliser of their own five minutes later.
Crisp drive
Captain Raffaele Cretaro, Alan Keane and Kevin Devaney were involved before the latter laid the ball back for Cawley to find the net with a crisp drive from 25 yards.
Both sides had chances in a tight second half, with Longford keeper Skinner tipping over a Danny Ledwith shot for the save of the night on 73 minutes.
LONGFORD TOWN: Skinner, Sullivan, Flynn, Tyrell, Powell, O'Sullivan (Simon 81 mins), Rice, Salmon, O'Connor, Ben Mohamed (Shannon 72 mins), Shaw.
SLIGO ROVERS: Brush, Keane, Boylan, Folan, Dykes, Devaney (Puri 85 mins), Russell, Cawley, Cretaro, Nielsen, Corcoran (Ledwith 67 mins). Referee: R Harvey (Dublin).
