Roscommon haven't won a provincial under-21 title since 1982, but they took a confident step towards remedying that disappointing record by ousting holders Galway from this year's campaign at Tuam Stadium on Saturday evening.
This was an exciting encounter from start to finish with some excellent scores, bad wides, goalmouth incidents and defensive errors combining to give great value for money to the large crowd. Roscommon, although 2-5 to 1-7 behind at half-time, overcame the handicap of shooting 14 wides to storm to a deserved victory thanks mainly to a great midfield partnership of Stephen Lohan and Dominic Gilhooley and some fine score-getting by Gary Cox, Gerry Lohan and Frankie Dolan.
ROSCOMMON: E Daly; M Cunniffe, J Whyte, A McPadden, M Costello; B Burke, D Harney, S Lohan (0-3); D Gilhooley, G Cox (0- 4); G Kelly, J Tiernan (0-1), J Hanley (0-1); G Lohan (1-3), F Dolan (0-3). Sub: K Hegarty for Kelly.
GALWAY: P Lally; R Leonard, B Dooney, K Collins; J Kearns, E Daly, J Lardner; M Hogan, J Bergin; M O Callarain (0-2), B Moran (1-2), N Meehan; D Reilly (1-1), M Newell (0-3), C Donnellan (0-2).
Subs: K Comer for Kearns and K Naughton for Meehan.
Referee: P Conway (Sligo).
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