Finn rescues a point for Garden County

ANTRIM 0-12 WICKLOW 0-12

ANTRIM and Wicklow fought out a dogged draw in testing conditions at Corrigan Park, Belfast, yesterday.

A draw was probably a fair result, but Antrim had the chances to win in the dying minutes against 13-man Wicklow, who had Seanie Furlong and Theo Smyth sent off in the second-half.

Furlong opened the scoring on three minutes, starting a run of four unanswered scores. Antrim got off the mark on 12 minutes, Paddy McBride adding a quick brace to cut the gap to two. Ryan Murray then scored the point of the day to cut the gap to the minimum.

Darragh Hayden split the posts before a brace of frees from Ryan Murray levelled it on 27 minutes. Furlong and Murray then swapped frees to leave the teams tied at 0-6 apiece at the break.

Antrim took the lead on 41 minutes through Conor Murray before Peter Healy put the Saffrons two ahead.

However, frees from Jackson and Hayden levelled matters for the fourth time. A superb CJ McGourty effort put Antrim ahead as the game approached injurytime, but Rory Finn levelled once again for the visitors.

SCORERS – Antrim: P McBride 0-5 (4f), R Murray 0-4 (2f), P Healy, C Murray & CJ McGourty 0-1 each. Wicklow: S Furlong 0-4 (3f), M Jackson, D Hayden 0-3f each, D Healy & R Finn 0-1 each. ANTRIM: C Kerr 7; P Healy 8, P Gallagher 8, N Delargy 7; K O’Boyle 7, M Sweeney 7, J Laverty 8; S Burke 8, M McCarry 7; P McAleer 7, S Beatty 7, C Murray 8; P McBride 9, M Fitzpatrick 8, R Murray 9 Subs: CJ McGourty 6 for M McCarry (48), R Johnston 7 for S Burke (56), K Healy for M Sweeney (69) WICKLOW: M Jackson 8; C Hyland 7, J Snell 7, H Wilson 7; P Burke 6, D Healy 8, R O’Brien; R Finn 8, J Stafford 8; D Hayden 8, M Kenny 6, C Magee 7; J Crowe 7, S Furlong 8, C Healy 7 Subs: E Murtagh 6 for P Burke (29), D Keane 7 for C Magee (45), T Smyth 6 for M Kenny (45), C Byrne for D Keane (61) REF – N McKenna (Monaghan)