Sport

Oakley leaves Derry blue

Offaly... 1-16 Derry... 0-9: A Ger Oakley-inspired Offaly proved much too strong for Derry at Lavey on Saturday

Mon Mar 11 2002 - 00:00

Offaly ... 1-16 Derry ... 0-9: A Ger Oakley-inspired Offaly proved much too strong for Derry at Lavey on Saturday. Offaly struggled to come to terms with the conditions in the first half but totally dominated in the second.

The visitors went in front in the opening minute thanks to Johnny Dooley, but Derry then got the edge in the scoring exchanges, with Ollie Collins particularly accurate from frees. Derry were, however, wasteful in the opening quarter and on four occasions attempted scores fell short into the hands of Offaly goalkeeper Stephen Byrne.

Dooley kept the visitors in touch with three first-half points. Derry's best chance of breaking through a stubborn defence arrived on 18 minutes when Ronan McCloskey found John O'Dwyer, but the man who scored three goals against Wexford was hooked as he was about to shoot. Late first-half points from Danny McGrellis and Dominic Magill ensured Derry led 0-7 to 0-5 at the break.

Offaly struck with an early second-half point from Damien Murray, before Oakley scored the game's only goal in the 44th minute. He took advantage of some slack Derry defending to drill the sliotar low to the corner to put Offaly in front for the first time since the opening minute.

READ MORE

Subsequent points from substitute Mick O'Hara, Dooley, Murray (two) and Brian Carroll ensured victory for the visitors, with Derry's only scores in the second half coming from Collins and John O'Dwyer. In the closing minutes Offaly confirmed their superiority with points from O'Hara, Murphy and Carroll.

OFFALY: S Byrne; D Franks, S Tooher, D Moran; J Brady, H Rigney, C Cassidy; D Kelly, G Oakley (1-1); J Dooley (0-4), B Murphy (0-2); D Murray (0-3); B Carroll (0-3); J Ryan, K Kelly. Subs: M O'Hara (0-3) for Kelly (47 mins); K Martin for Cassidy (half-time).

DERRY: K Stevenson; E McKeever, G Brunton, B Ward; M Conway, C McEldowney, D Magill (0-1); R McCloskey, O Collins (0-6); Gregory Biggs, D McGrellis (0-1), P O'Kane; M Collins, R Kennedy, J O'Dwyer (0-1). Subs: Gary Biggs for Kennedy (21 mins); D Doherty for Gregory Biggs (50 mins); A McCloskey for O'Kane (62 mins); K Hinphey for Ward (65 mins).

Referee: G Devlin (Armagh)