A little atom of history at Pearse Park in Longford where the home side scored their first ever victory over Wexford and their first championship win in eight years. Only three of yesterday's team had ever experienced a championship victory. They left the premises hollering as if they had won an All-Ireland.

Wexford are making a habit of donating games to the opposition. They exited the championship in such circumstances last year, gave away an eight-point lead (twice) in the drawn game last week and led by seven points at half-time yesterday but failed to score again until injury time at the end of the game.

The irony of the first half for Longford was that they started much better than they had the previous week in New Ross. Padraic Davis, who finished that game with a colossal equalising point, began with a greater degree of involvement than he had enjoyed in New Ross and scored three good points from play in the opening quarter of an hour. Longford had been well into the second half in New Ross before they scored from play.

Their more positive approach, however, looked as if it might be negated by defensive mistakes in the opening half. Having crept into a one-point lead with three points from the diminutive Davis and another from David Hanniffy, Longford gave away two sloppy goals in the space of four minutes.

First a ball-watching defence failed to grab hold of the sliver of mercury which is Scott Doran as he took receipt of a Jim Byrne pass and slipped it home. Longford rallied with a free by Dessie Barry but in the 22nd minute they hit another iceberg when a Ronan Kinsella high ball was knocked down into the path of Michael Mahon, who knocked it to the net. With Longford looking disoriented at that stage Wexford clipped another three points on to their total to enjoy a substantial half-time lead.

In the Longford dressing-room the talking must have been fast and furious. They made wholesale changes for the second half, moving Ciaran Keogh to centre back, Niall Sheridan to centre forward, Aidan Keogh to full forward and Frank McNamee to full back.

Such tampering with the spine of a team doesn't always augur well, but on this occasion Michael McCormack got things just right. Sheridan, who had suffered a miserable first half, was a sight more influential and Peter Lynch, who had been introduced late in the first half, went on to became on of the dominant figures of the game, scoring two points and using a plenitude of possession well.

The sense that things were swinging Longford's way hardened early in the second half when, having narrowed the gap by just one point, Longford were given a numerical advantage with the sending off of Ciaran Roche for a second bookable offence. Dessie Barry pointed the accompanying free and suddenly Wexford looked a tad uncomfortable.

Davis, the key Longford forward all through the game, tacked on a couple of quick points and the crowd began sensing blood. As happened last week in New Ross, the Wexford midfield suddenly evaporated, and the closing 20 minutes was a parade of Longford attacks.

The pace of the comeback might have been accelerated had Sheridan finished a wonderful move on 57 minutes with a goal instead of a narrow wide. A fussy refereeing performance saw two more sendings off within a minute before the hour mark. This time David Blessington and John Harrington were punished for refusing to accept the status of innocent bystanders when Darragh Ryan brought down David Hanniffy.

With just 13 men on the field and the current of the game running against them, Wexford wilted and the equalising point came in the 60th minute, fittingly from Davis.

Longford closed out confidently, conceding a point from a dead ball in injury time when their minds were already on next week's meeting with Westmeath.