Westmeath dominate neighbours Longford to reach Leinster semis

Westmeath have qualified for the Leinster senior football championship semi-finals after a convincing win against Longford in miserable conditions for football in front of 2,290 spectators in Mullingar.

Westmeath's promotion hopes from Division 3 received a major body blow in March with a surprise four-point defeat to their neighbours at the same venue, but Jack Cooney's men made no mistake on this occasion.

Ironically, Longford started the brighter with points from Daniel Reynolds and Michael Quinn putting them two ahead after six minutes. A lot of the play was cagey and it was 0-03 each at the quarter-hour mark, Longford’s other point coming from Dessie Reynolds (a brother of Daniel), while the home team registered scores from Alex Gardiner and two John Heslin frees.

However, despite surviving two goal-scoring scares in the 21st and 27th minutes when high balls created problems for the home rearguard, Westmeath went on to dominate the rest of the first half, with their half-back line of Jamie Gonoud, Ronan Wallace and Nigel Harte very much on top of their direct opponents.

Indeed, Harte had time to join the attack and kick two outstanding points. Gardiner also added a brace to his earlier point.

In the 28th minute, a Westmeath counter-attack ended with veteran Ger Egan, returning after a long injury lay-off, being denied by Paddy Colum, but Heslin (who was busy throughout) was on hand to rifle the rebound to the net.

A Darren Gallagher free in the 35th minute was his side’s first score in 27 minutes, but Longford still trailed by 1-09 to 0-04 at the interval.

Half-time sub Dylan Farrell kicked Longford’s first wide of the contest in the first minute of the second half, but Ray Connellan soon extended Westmeath’s lead with a