Allianz Football League Division 1<\/p>\n
Roscommon 2-20 (2-4-12) Donegal 0-20 (0-4-12)<\/p>\n
By Ian Cooney at King and Moffatt Dr. Hyde Park<\/p>\n
Enda Smith catapulted Roscommon to a famous league win and, in the process, ended Donegal\u2019s unbeaten league record at King and Moffatt Dr. Hyde Park.<\/p>\n
In a game where Mother Nature dished out the harshest of weather with frequent hail showers, Roscommon \u2014 aided by Smith\u2019s 0-6 haul and leadership qualities \u2014 held their nerve to guarantee their top-flight status for 2027 and leave themselves an outside chance of reaching the league final when they travel to Castlebar on Sunday next.<\/p>\n
Donegal had Roscommon where they wanted them \u2014 overturning an 11-point half-time deficit to leave just a point between them with eight minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
But, crucially, they never gained parity and Roscommon finished with an unanswered 1-2, aided by substitute Conor Hand\u2019s goal, to leave the Rossies in the 5,689 crowd laden with giddiness at the final whistle.<\/p>\n
Wind-assisted Roscommon set out their stall early, with Enda Smith hitting a couple of two-pointers.<\/p>\n
Each time, Donegal replied through singles from Conor McCahill and Conor O\u2019Donnell but the Rossies took over after that.<\/p>\n
In the 13th minute, a brilliant turnover from Senan Lambe ignited a move that saw Paddy Gavin and Daire Cregg set up Diarmuid Murtagh for a goal.<\/p>\n
The chances kept coming for Roscommon, and although Cregg and Smith were off target, Murtagh added a free after the home side put pressure on Donegal coming out of defence.<\/p>\n
There was another big momentum swing in the 24th minute when a goal chance for Conor O\u2019Donnell was snuffed out, and Roscommon counter-attacked swiftly which procured their third two-pointer of the half \u2014 this time from midfielder Keith Doyle.<\/p>\n
Michael Murphy ended a 15-minute scoring famine for Donegal from a free, but Roscommon continued to push home their advantage.<\/p>\n
Senan Lambe made space to clip over an excellent score before Murtagh \u2014 a two-point free \u2014 and Robert Heneghan added to their side\u2019 tally.<\/p>\n
Two points inside a minute from Colm Neary stretched Roscommon\u2019s lead out to 13 points with four minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
But Donegal rallied, with Jason McGee dragging a presentable goal chance wide before Conor Carroll denied Conor McCahill.<\/p>\n
From the resultant \u201945, goalkeeper Gavin Mulreany bisected the posts before Murphy landed a score all of his own making to leave the visitors 1-13 to 0-05 behind at the break.<\/p>\n
As the hail returned with a vengeance at the start of the second half, Donegal quickly went about dismantling Roscommon\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n
Substitute Shea Malone marked his introduction with a point before Eoghan B\u00e1n Gallagher burst through the heart of the Roscommon defence and added another score.<\/p>\n
The tsunami of Donegal scorers kept coming as Jason McGee, Malone and Michael Langan hit a hat-trick of two-pointers.<\/p>\n
Keith Doyle scored Roscommon\u2019s only point in the first 20 minutes of the half as McGee and O\u2019Donnell added to Donegal\u2019s tally to leave Jim McGuinness\u2019 side just 1-14 to 0-15 behind, and all the momentum behind them.<\/p>\n
But Roscommon gained some traction, helped by the introduction of Conor Hand who grabbed a score, as did Smith and Diarmuid Murtagh (free).<\/p>\n
But Donegal came again with their fourth orange flag of the half \u2014 this time an outside-of-the-boot effort from Finbarr Roarty.<\/p>\n
Senan Lambe\u2019s second point of the game was sandwiched between scores from Caolan McColgan, McGee and Jamie Brennan to leave just a point in it by the 62nd minute.<\/p>\n
But Roscommon, with Smith showing immense leadership, finished with a flourish. The 2023 All-Star from Boyle brought his tally to 0-06 before Hand pounced for the game-defining goal.<\/p>\n
Murtagh tagged on a free to finish with 1-05 as Roscommon laid down a serious marker and, in the process, stalled Donegal\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allianz Football League Division 1 Roscommon 2-20 (2-4-12) Donegal 0-20 (0-4-12) By Ian Cooney at King and Moffatt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-348594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348594","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=348594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}