Despite losing their captain and full back Seamus Quinn midway through the first half, 14-man Leitrim proved much too strong for Limerick at Carrick-on-Shannon yesterday. Aidan Rooney stole the honours by registering nine of Leitrim's points and his star-studded performance laid the foundations for victory.

Michael Reidy opened the scoring for Limerick with a point in the second minute but Rooney equalised and then shot Leitrim in front three minutes later. Points from Adrian Cullen, Rooney and Padraig Kenny extended the Leitrim lead to 0-7 to 0-2 by the end of the first quarter. Leitrim rearranged their defence after Quinn's dismissal, and despite being down to 14 men, increased their lead to 0-9 to 0-3. However, they were stunned by a Colm Hickey goal for Limerick in the 24th minute but regrouped to add five more points to lead 0-14 to 1-5 at the interval.

The tempo dropped in the second half with Leitrim ruling the roost. Tom McLaughlin gave Limerick the tonic of a point after 30 seconds but the game was over as a contest within another half-a-minute when David McNulty scored a speculative goal for Leitrim. The Leitrim defence kept a tight rein on the Limerick forwards for the remainder of the game and scored five unanswered points in the last quarter to win by an impressive 11 points.

LEITRIM: M Prior; R Greenan, S Quinn, D Kelleher (0-1); P Flynn, J Phelan, G Foley; P McDermott, B Guckian; D McNulty (1-1), A Cullen (0- 1), D Lynch; A Rooney (0-9), F McBrien (0-3), P Kenny (0-3). Subs: P Farrell (0-1) for B Guckian, K Murray for D McNulty.

LIMERICK: E Scollard; T McGarry, B Begley, G O'Connor; T Stack, C McSweeney, D Sheehy; M O'Doherty, T McLoughlin (0-1); C Minihane, D Ryan (0-1), P Ahern; M Culhane (0-1), M Reidy (0-2), C Hickey (1-3). Subs: B Tobin for T Stack, N Hunt for M O'Doherty, N Conway for G O'Connor, D Fitzgerald for M Culhane, E Rice for T McLoughlin.

Referee: B McCormack (Roscommon).