Round Towers 1-5 Rathnew 0-5 Kildare champions Round Towers booked a place in the semi-final of the Leinster Club senior football championship yesterday when they beat former champions Rathnew by three points at Aughrim.

Rathnew, who won the Leinster title in 2001, had to play with just 14 men for all but three minutes of the second half and failed to bridge the gap of Pádraig Donnolly's punched goal for Round Towers after 23 minutes of the first half.

Dominant in the first quarter, Rathnew were, however, guilty of spilling too much possession to their rivals through one pass too many. Nonetheless, that they were just 0-2 to 0-1 in front after 18 minutes didn't reflect their superiority.

That superiority ebbed though on 23 minutes when Round Towers' Donnolly angled his fisted effort from Liam Ryan's free to the corner of Rathnew's net, and the Kildare champions took up the running in the second quarter.

Behind by 0-3 to 1-2 at the break, Rathnew's chances weren't improved within three minutes of the restart when they lost wing forward Anthony Mernagh to a red card.Round Towers' Brian Lacey had already nabbed the second of his points in the second minute of the second half, stretching his side's lead to 1-3 to 0-3, to give Towers a platform Rathnew could not scale, the Wicklow club shooting nine wides in the second period.

ROUND TOWERS: J Kindregan; D Houlihan, B Kennedy, D Maher; B Lacey (0-2), G Ryan, M Scanlon; P Mullarkey, D Broughall (0-1); TJ Waters, P Golden (0-1), L Donlon; L Ryan, P Donnolly (1-1), K Dwyer. Sub: S Daly for L Donlon

RATHNEW: T Murphy; B Mernagh, M Coffey, C Murphy; E Franey, S Byrne, S Doherty; J Stafford, D Coffey (0-1); M Doyle, T Doyle (0-4 frees), A Mernagh; T Gill, R Coffey, N Mernagh. Subs: D Byrne for N Mernagh, R Dignam for J Stafford, A Clare for E Franey.

Referee: E Murtagh (Longford).