Senior hurlers too strong for Offaly

WALSH CUP

DUBLIN 0-27 OFFALY 0-18

Dublin had too much firepower for Offaly in Sunday's Walsh Cup Round 2 clash at Parnell Park.

Victory means Dublin are top of the table in their group with two wins from two starts with a clash against Laois up next in the new year.

Inside forward Eamonn Dillon and Donal Burke impressed once Dublin adopted to the tricky underfoot conditions and let the ball in early.

Indeed Dublin could have led by more than 0-10 to 0-5 at the break but for players losing their footing in potentially threatening positions.

Midfielder Cian Boland showed plenty of skill and panache as well as hitting four points from play including one from just on the halfway line after cutting out an Offaly crossfield pass

Unfortunately David Treacy was forced off in the first half with injury while Donal Burke also had to be replaced 11 minutes into the second-half.

John Hetherton won some good aerial ball when drifting out to the half-forward line while the Dublin defence tightened up after a bit of a sluggish start.

Dublin never looked in any trouble in the second-half and could start to empty their bench well before the finish.

Dillon almost added a goal to his tally ten minutes into the second half but his angled groundstroke when across the face of the Offaly goal and narrowly wide.

"A good honest effort from all the lads. In general they were trying to do the right thing with the ball most of the times and set up some nice scoring opportunities.They're the sort of things we're going to be working on going into the New Year," said Dublin manager Mattie Kenny.

"These two games, they were good this week, just to break the monotony of the gym. But they're a really good bunch of lads. Like a lot of teams, they want to achieve as much as they can. And the preparation in December and January is key to that, for building for the league and building for the championship after that later on next year."

SCORERS – Dublin: D Burke, D Treacy (0-4f), E Dillon, J Hetherton (0-2f), C Boland 0-4 each, C Burke, F Whitely 0-2 each, F McGibb, D Keogh, R Hayes 0-1 each. Offaly: A Treacy 0-6 (0-4f, 0-1 ’65'), J Gorman 0-4, S Dolan, S Kinsella, K Connolly (0-1f) 0-2 each, C Taylor, C Egan 0-1 each.

DUBLIN: S Brennan; L Gannon, C O’Callaghan, B O’Carroll; T Connolly, C Crummey, S Barrett; C Boland, S Treacy; D Treacy, C Conway, F McGibb; J Hetherton, D Burke, E Dillon. Subs: F Whitely for D Treacy (inj, 32), D Gray for Barrett (ht), C Burke for Conway (ht), L Walsh for Gannon (43), O O’Rorke for D Burke (46), Gannon for O’Carroll (47), D Keogh for O’Callaghan (55), R Hayes for Dillon (60), R Smith for Hetherton (65), G Whelan for Boland (65), J Hetherton for Crummey (72).

OFFALY: C Glancy; D Healy, P Rigney, T Spain; C O’Brien, E Grogan, N Houlihan; C Taylor, K Dunne; P Guinan, S Dolan, S Kinsella; K Connolly, A Treacy, J Gorman. Subs: M Egan for Healy (18), C Egan for Grogan (ht), D Murray for Gorman (60), E Parlon for Guinan (60), E Callaghan for Treacy (70).

REF: D Hughes (Carlow).