Offaly see off Carlow to keep promotion bid on track

Offaly's unbeaten run through Division 2A of the Allianz hurling league continued this afternoon, as they overcame torrential rain and dogged resistance from Carlow to record a seven-point win over their fellow Joe McDonagh competitors at Glenisk O’Connor Park in Tullamore.

Not for the first time this season, indiscipline was an issue for Carlow as there were red cards for Diarmuid Byrne, Jack Kavanagh and one of their mentors – with Offaly’s Cillian Kiely also seeing red – but missed chances arguably haunted the visitors even more so.

They trailed by 0-11 to 0-06 at half time despite enjoying more than their fair share of the play, and will feel that on another day, they could easily have been in front at that stage of proceedings.

Eoghan Cahill was in excellent form for Offaly, from frees and from general play, while Charlie Mitchell, Kiely and Oisín Kelly also weighed in with excellent scores. Carlow registered a couple of nice points too, but Martin Kavanagh had a real off-day from frees, missing multiple chances in each half, while last week’s four-goal hero Paddy Boland spilled a short pass when a clean catch would have left him clean through on goal, and Ciarán Burke was able to swoop in and avert the danger before Boland could regroup.

After the change of ends, the home side fell into the trap of playing the ball long because they could, instead of doing so because they should, for the first ten minutes of their wind-assisted second half.

This opened the door for Carlow to eat into their lead, with Ciarán Whelan and Martin Kavanagh on the mark from play, in between two converted frees that reduced the gap to a goal, 0-13 to 0-10.

Offaly’s best performers during this phase of the game were all in their own half of the