GAELIC GAMES/Football Qualifiers: First round draw:After the previous week's demanding replay against Meath, Leinster champions Dublin looked listless for much of yesterday's provincial semi-final against Offaly. By the end of a non-descript afternoon's football the crowd of 77,623 must have been pretty weary as well.
Dublin manager Paul Caffrey accepted afterwards that the 1-12 to 0-10 win hadn't been one his team's better days.
"I think it was a fairly poor performance. Overall I think there is a lot of areas for improvement but you know that's for the next three weeks. There was still a lot of fatigue in the lads. Good patches of football but poor stuff as well.
"It was obvious we weren't as fresh. We couldn't train on Tuesday night. We played football for 15 minutes on Thursday and nothing yesterday. The Meath games took a huge amount out of the players but we're relieved now to be back in another Leinster final."
That final takes place on July 15th against the winners of next week's second semi-final between Laois and Wexford, neither of whom will have been too intimidated by what they witnessed yesterday.
As usual Dublin started in a hurry but after about 15 minutes the cruise ground to a halt and for the remaining 20 minutes the two teams managed just three points between them.
The match's turning point was a goal just two minutes into the second half when Dublin doubled their lead to six points, 1-6 to 0-3, with a freakish score. Alan Brogan flipped the ball across the goal and had it simply sailed into the net there would have been a free out but defender Joe Quinn, under pressure from Mark Vaughan, was deemed to have got a touch to the otherwise harmless hand pass and the goal stood.
Offaly manager Pat Roe was less than happy with the adjudication when talking afterwards.
"Look, Jesus lads, there was about four different fouls. It was a square ball, he was pushed, that happens I'm not going to use that as a reason why we lost. It was a crucial moment no doubt about that. We scored the first point of the second half. The goal shouldn't have been a goal but there you go. It happens."
The price of defeat is high for Offaly as a Division Four team. Instead of progressing to the top 12 in the All-Ireland championship they will now have to concentrate their efforts on the Tommy Murphy Cup.
Dublin have the chance to record a first three-in-a-row since 1995 but their sights will be set higher than that even if, to date, they have struggled to justify that lofty ambition.
Elsewhere there were more convincing displays by the outsiders. Monaghan beat favourites Derry at Casement Park. Séamus McEneaney's team controlled the match for most of the 70 minutes with fine contributions from Tommy Freeman (0-7, five points from play) and Stephen Gollogly (four from play).
With 13 minutes left a goal against the run of play by Paddy Bradley gave Derry renewed hope and closed the gap to 1-8 to 0-12 but Monaghan saw it out with points from Rory Woods and Gollogly to reach a first provincial final since 1988 where they will face the same opponents as 19 years ago, Tyrone.
In Connacht, Leitrim put it up to Galway for most of the match. An early goal by Gary McCloskey revved up the home crowd at newly-redeveloped Páirc Seán MacDiarmada in Carrick-on-Shannon but the favourites hauled back the lead and remained, if at times edgily, in front for the whole match, finally running out winners by 0-17 to 1-10.
Peter Ford's team will play Sligo in next month's provincial final.
(Ties to be played weekend of July 7th/8th)
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