O'Neill in the goals as Harte's Offaly hammer Antrim

A big helping hand from visiting Antrim helped Offaly continue their flying start to Division 3 of the National Football League with a third convincingly impressive win in O'Connor Park on Sunday afternoon.

Offaly may well have collected the points anyway but Antrim gift wrapped them with ribbons when their two midfielders Conor Stewart and Conor Hand were red carded in the first six minutes of the second half.

Stewart walked a minute after the resumption for a clash that left John Furlong on the ground and was followed in the 41st minute by Hand, who left Offaly forward Dylan Hyland needing treatment after kicking a quality two pointer.

Hyland’s strike gave Offaly a 2-10 to 0-12 lead and Antrim battled with great character for the next few minutes. They did well to reduce the gap to 2-11 to 0-14 after 50 minutes but with the wind on their back and two extra men, it would have taken something calamitous to unfold for Offaly not to collect the points.

Under the new rules with Antrim having to keep three defenders back, they really couldn’t win the game in those circumstances, even if they got away with breaching the rule on a couple of occasions. It didn’t matter as Offaly had the luxury of defending deep and breaking forward at lightening pace to turn the screw in the closing quarter.

By the time Antrim got their 15th point from Marc Jordan in the 69th minute, Offaly had 4-17 on the board, giving their scoring difference a big boost. Keith O’Neill’s 59th-minute goal made it 3-13 to 0-14 and ended any semblance of a contest.

He got in for a second goal in the 68th minute as man of the match Jordan Hayes ran the game from midfield and the returning John Furlong was superb at the heart of their defence.

The value of the new rules