Dublin hammer Sligo and cruise into quarter-finals

It took them a while to get going but when Dublin eventually found top gear they sped past Sligo to a huge All-Ireland SFC win at Kingspan Breffni, securing top spot in Group 3 and qualification for the quarter-finals.

Trailing by a point approaching the 20th minute, there was no suggestion that this was going to end in a 24-point win for Dessie Farrell's crew but they soon got on top and ultimately hammered the Connacht finalists.

Con O'Callaghan finished with 1-05 while fellow goalscorer Colm Basquel struck 1-03 and oozed quality during what turned out to be a one-sided rout.

Defender Eoin Murchan got forward for a goal too with 10 different Dublin players getting on the scoresheet overall.

With Roscommon losing out to Kildare elsewhere, it means that Dublin have finished as the clear winners of Group 3, though even if Roscommon had won then Dublin would still have taken top spot on scoring difference.

Dublin will learn their quarter-final opposition tomorrow morning while Sligo's season is over.

Sligo manager Tony McEntee stated beforehand that, realistically, the Division 4 league champions weren't targeting a win over All-Ireland hopefuls Dublin.

It didn't appear that way initially with the Yeats men giving as good as they got for the opening 20 minutes.

Dublin hit the interval with a 1-13 to 0-04 half-time lead but that dozen-point gap failed to tell the true story of a highly competitive opening quarter.

In fact, with 18 minutes played Sligo led by 0-03 to 0-02 following points from Darragh Cummins, Niall Murphy and Sean Carrabine.

Murphy and Carrabine had the full attention of their markers, Murchan and Michael Fitzsimons, and were causing all sorts of bother.

They kicked themselves that they weren't able to make better use