KERRY DUO JACK O’Connor and Paul Galvin both suffered defeat in their opening O’Byrne Cup games as Kildare and Wexford lost out in the opening round of the competition.
Longford got the better of Kildare in Newbridge with Joe Hagan and Daniel Mimnagh both grabbing the decisive goals to fire the visitors to a 2-14 to 1-14 win.
Darren Gallagher, Rian Brady and Peter Lynn were also among Longford’s scorers in their six-point victory, while Neil Flynn top-scored for Kildare. He finished with a tally of 0-5 for O’Connor’s charges.
Meanwhile, Galvin’s first O’Byrne Cup game in charge of Wexford also ended in defeat as they lost out to Westmeath in Enniscorthy.
Joe Halligan scored a crucial goal in the first-half as the visitors came away with a 1-11 to 0-11 win.
Wexford held a two-point lead at the break despite the concession of that goal, but Westmeath edged into the lead after the restart. Conor McCormack, Lorcan Dolan, Kieran Martin and Stephen Connolly all split the posts to seal a three-point win.
Mike Quirke is another Kerry native in charge of a Leinster county for this season. However, his first O’Byrne Cup game with Laois ended in defeat as they lost out narrowly to Offaly.
Diarmuid Whelan and Micheal Keogh both hit first-half goals for Laois, but Cian Farrell also found the back of the net for Offaly in the second-half, and Bernard Allen finished with 0-7 for the Faithful county.
Finally, Carlow got their O’Byrne Cup campaign off the mark with a three-point win over Wicklow in Portarlington.
Daniel St Ledger was the first to find the net when his ’45 ended up in the Wicklow goal in the first-half.
Robbie Kane added the second after the restart while Wicklow finished with 14 men when Dean Healy was dismissed with two yellow cards.
O’Byrne Cup Results:
Wexford 0-11 Westmeath 1-11
Laois 2-12 Offaly 1-17
Kildare 0-14 Longford 2-14
Carlow 2-5 Wicklow 0-8
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