Tipperary bowed out of All-Ireland senior football championship race to tenacious Louth in a well-contested qualifying tie at Clonmel on Saturday.

Tipperary dominated the early play and Damien O'Brien and Peter Lambert pointed frees. Louth's star performer Mark Stanfield and the hard-working Christy Grimes responded with points before corner forward Lambert rocked the visitors with a stunning eighth-minute goal.

Louth responded with unanswered points from Colin Kelly, Darren Kirwan and David Reilly. Full forward John Shanahan's 29th-minute point was the first Tipperary score for 21 minutes and they went into the break leading 1-3 to 0-5.

Louth were first off the mark after the break with a Stanfield pointed free and after an exchange of points a Damien O'Brien free on 43 minutes restored Tipp's lead, but Stanfield hit a brace of points to earn Louth a 0-10 to 1-6 lead.

Tipp's Tommy Ormond closed the gap again but Louth then really hit the winning trail with three points in three minutes, from David Reilly, Stanfield and Simon Gerard, and that was that.