A precious point dropped in the promotion race? Perhaps. But 13-man Dublin still celebrated Chris Crummey’s 75th-minute equaliser at Croke Park like they’d just won the All-Ireland.<\/p>\n
There was huge relief among Dublin supporters when ultra experienced Crummey, confirmed as captain for 2026 ahead of the game, tied it up in the last play.<\/p>\n
At that stage, Dublin, who have already lost to Clare in Division 1B, were down to 13 players following the dismissals of midfielder Conor Groarke and full-back Paddy Smyth.<\/p>\n
There was more controversy at the final whistle as both sets of players traded shoves and insults while opposing managers Niall \u00d3 Ceallach\u00e1in and Keith Rossiter went nose-to-nose at one stage over a late free awarded to Wexford.<\/p>\n
There’s clearly no love lost between the sides with Wexford chasing a first win over Dublin in six competitive encounters.<\/p>\n
It looked like they might pull it off too, to make it four wins from four, when Darragh Carley put them a point ahead in the 69th minute.<\/p>\n
But Brian Hayes and then, at the death, Crummey clawed back scores for Dublin to keep their promotion hopes just about alive.<\/p>\n
Simon Roche, last year’s U-20 captain for Wexford, top scored for Wexford with 0-10 while Kevin Foley, 2-0, and Lee Chin, 1-1, grabbed the goals in a rollercoaster encounter that sets things up nicely for their Championship rematch in May.<\/p>\n
Wexford are still unbeaten after four games and have seven points on the board with Clare and Kildare still to play.<\/p>\n
As for Dublin, they got a big impact from the returning John Hetherton, who struck two goals, while free-taker Donal Burke drilled 1-9 and All-Star Cian O’Sullivan grabbed a goal too.<\/p>\n
Dublin handed Hetherton his first start of the season having missed their previous six Walsh Cup and League games.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 Ceallach\u00e1in was perhaps hoping the St Vincent’s attacker could conjure the same sort magic he displayed against Wexford at nearby Parnell Park last summer, when he slammed 2-3 in the Leinster SHC.<\/p>\n
And the Dublin manager got his wish because Hetherton was dangerous straight away, scoring a first half goal and causing havoc in the Wexford full-back line any time a long delivery came his way.<\/p>\n
Dublin launched three long balls towards Hetherton in the first 15 minutes alone.<\/p>\n
One of those ended with the ball breaking to O’Sullivan who immediately swiped off the turf and struck the net.<\/p>\n
Dublin carved out another goal chance in the 19th minute when Fergal Whitely played in Eoghan O’Donnell who drew a great save from Mark Fanning.<\/p>\n
But the ball was only cleared as far as the waiting Hetherton who, like O’Sullivan earlier, pulled first time and rattled the net.<\/p>\n
Burke’s fourth point of the half for Dublin left them 2-7 to 0-7 ahead and Hetherton got involved again, winning another long delivery that ended with a Whitely score.<\/p>\n
From that position of authority, with a 2-8 to 0-9 lead after 29 minutes, Dublin somehow ended up going in two points down at half time.<\/p>\n
Wexford suddenly came alive with points from Tom\u00e1s Kinsella and goalkeeper Fanning, a bomb from his own half, before Kevin Foley levelled the game with a goal.<\/p>\n
Quick hands in the Dublin danger zone eventually led to Ross Banville finding Foley who was probably fouled by goalkeeper Se\u00e1n Brennan but still found the net.<\/p>\n
Chin and Roche added points and suddenly Wexford were sitting pretty with a 1-13 to 2-8 lead. To compound Dublin’s difficulties, the free that Roche scored from came after a foul by midfielder Conor Groarke who was shown a second yellow card.<\/p>\n
Dublin brought on Conor Donohoe at half time to shore up the middle third and took the numerical hit in attack, leaving Wexford with a spare defender.<\/p>\n
Referee Michael Kennedy was also in charge when the sides met last summer and he made a big penalty call which went Dublin’s way for a goal on that occasion.<\/p>\n
He was about two more huge penalty calls in this game.<\/p>\n
Firstly, he black carded Richie Lawlor for a foul on O’Sullivan, resulting in a penalty that Burke dispatched, levelling the game at 3-10 to 1-16.<\/p>\n
Then, at the other end, he dismissed Conor Burke for 10 minutes for a foul on Rory Higgins though Mark Fanning was unable to convert the resulting penalty for Wexford.<\/p>\n
It turned out a cracking game was only warming up. Foley struck his second goal in the 52nd minute and Hetherton doubled his tally with a second goal too, firing one handed to the net four minutes later.<\/p>\n
It set up a thrilling finale and Wexford, with two extra players, thought they’d done enough to win it but 2025 All-Ireland semi-finalists Dublin simply wouldn’t be beaten.<\/p>\n
\n Dublin scorers: Donal Burke 1-9 (0-7f, 1-0 pen, 0-1 65), John Hetherton 2-0, Cian O’Sullivan 1-1, Brian Hayes 0-2, Fergal Whitely 0-2, Eoghan O’Donnell 0-1, Conor Groarke 0-1, Conor Donohoe 0-1, John Bellew 0-1, Chris Crummey 0-1.<\/p>\n
\n Wexford scorers: Simon Roche 0-10 (0-8f), Kevin Foley 2-0, Lee Chin 1-1 (1-0 pen), Conor Hearne 0-3, Darren Codd 0-1, Ross Banville 0-1, Tom\u00e1s Kinsella 0-1, Mark Fanning 0-1 (0-1f), Conor Foley 0-1, Rory Higgins 0-1, Damien Reck 0-1, Darragh Carley 0-1.<\/p>\n
\n Dublin: Se\u00e1n Brennan; John Bellew, Paddy Smyth, Eoghan O’Donnell; Andrew Dunphy, Chris Crummey, Conor Burke; Conor Groarke, Darragh Power; D\u00f3nal Burke, Brian Hayes, Fergal Whitely; John Hetherton, Ronan Hayes, Cian O’Sullivan.<\/p>\n
\n Subs: Conor Donohoe for Power h\/t, Diarmaid \u00d3 D\u00falaing for Whitely 53, Dara Purcell for Ronan Hayes 62, Conal O Riain for O’Sullivan 69.<\/p>\n
\n Wexford: Mark Fanning; Darragh Carley, Conor Foley, Simon Donohoe; Damien Reck, Richie Lawlor, Eamon Wickham; Conor Hearne, David Codd; Ross Banville, Simon Roche, Darren Codd; Lee Chin, Kevin Foley, Tom\u00e1s Kinsella.<\/p>\n
\n Subs: Rory Higgins for Kinsella 44, Diarmuid O’Leary for Wickham 49, James Byrne for Darren Codd 59, Cian Byrne for Banville 71.<\/p>\n
\n Referee: Michael Kennedy (Tipperary).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A precious point dropped in the promotion race? Perhaps. But 13-man Dublin still celebrated Chris Crummey’s 75th-minute equaliser…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1965,1128,42,43,850,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-310698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-hurling","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sport","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}