Limerick get past Offaly despite Shane Dooley’s best efforts

Limerick 1-25 Offaly 3-15

It’s not often that a player scores 2-11 and ends up on the losing side but such was the fate of the outsanding Shane Dooley against Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds on Saturday.

Limerick’s Ronan Lynch fired 0-11, 10 of which came from frees.

Though playing against the very strong breeze Limerick reeled off six points without reply inside nine minutes with David Dempsey, Ronan Lynch, two frees and one from play, John Fitzgibbon and Lynch another free all on the mark.

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It was 10 minutes before Shane Dooley had Offaly’s first point from a free and he tacked on three more, all frees, to leave two between them.

Lynch, a free from 70 yards, and Sean Tobin had Limerick points with Conor Dougan getting the visitors first from play.

A purple patch which yielded 1-3 without response helped Offaly lead by 1-12 to 0-12 for Limerick who were reduced to 14 after 33 minutes when John Fitzgibbon was shown a straight red for a foul on Dougan.

Offaly goalkeeper Jim Dempsey made a superb save from his Limerick namesake David, but two goals in as many minutes by Dooley and Oisian Kelly rocked Limerick in the 52nd and 53rd minutes rocked the home side.

Mainly due to the accuracy of Ronan Lynch from frees and a three point contribution from Gearoid Hegarty helped Limerick limp to victory.

LIMERICK: D McCarthy; S Finn, R McCarthy, M Casey; S Hickey, D Byrnes 0-1, D Hannon; P Ryan 0-2, J Fitzgibbon 0-1; G Hegarty 0-3, D Dempsey 0-1, J Ryan 0-2; A Le Touche-Cosgrave 1-1, R Lynch 0-11 (10f), S Tobin 0-1.

Subs: D O’Donovan 0-1 for P Ryan (54), G Mulcahy 0-1 for Tobin (57) S Cahill for Finn (620, A Dempsey for La Touche-Cosgrave (65).

OFFALY: J Dempsey; M Cleary, P Delaney, P Rigney; S Ryan, D Short, b Conneely; P Guinan, C Doughan 0-2; S Cleary, S Dooley 2-11 (0-8f 1 s/line), O Kelly 1-0; E Nolan 0-1, C Kiely 0-1, P Geraghty.

Subs: D Markhan for Guinan h-t, A Cleary for Geraghty (49), J Mulrooney for Kiely (49), L Langton for Nolan (61), S Quirke for S Cleary (66).

Referee: F Horgan (Tipperary).