Meath are through to the last four of the Leinster U20 football championship after Darragh O'Reilly’s late point secured them a 1-11 to 0-13 win over Longford at Pearse Park.

The home side had held their opponents scoreless for the opening 20 minutes of this quarter-final encounter prior to Ruairí Kinsella hitting their net, levelling the game at 0-3 to 1-0. 

Jack Macken opened the scoring for Longford and the very impressive Jack Duggan followed with two brilliant points.

Both keepers were called in to action to stop certain goals before Kinsella opened Meath’s account. Niall Finnerty raised Meath first white flag soon after. The Royals added points through Jamie Browne, Finnerty again and Kinsella to close out their opening half scoring while Duggan kept Longford in touch with three more points.

Playing with the wind Meath added two quick points through Finnerty and Eoghan Frayne and by the 15th minute they still held a goal advantage, 1-9 to 0-9. 

The neutrals in the small crowd would have thought that the visitors would push on but Longford had other ideas and completely dominated the next ten minutes They were rewarded with three outstanding scores from Duggan to tie up proceedings. With five minutes remaining he Midlanders’ marksman struck a penalty against the post with Meath’s Adam McDonnell having received a black card for the initial foul on Duggan.

Keelin McGann put Longford in front again but substitute Pearse Sheridan levelled the game before another substitute, O’Reilly doubled his tally when fisting over the winner in injury-time.

Meath take on Dublin next Thursday in the Leinster semi-final at Parnell Park.

Meath scorers: Ruairi Kinsella 1-1, Niall Finnerty 0-3, Daragh O’Reilly 0-2, Jamie Browne, Eoghan Frayne, Diarmaid Moriarty, Mark Coffey and Pearse Sheridan 0-1 each

Longford scorers: Jack Duggan 0-9, Jack Macken 0-2, Matt Duffy and Keelin McGann 0-1 each

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