Seanie Johnston was the scoring hero at Kingspan Breffni Park tonight as he struck 1-05 to seal Cavan's passage into the Tommy Murphy Cup quarter-finals with a 2-12 to 0-14 defeat of Roscommon.
The DCU student rocketed home his goal, two minutes from time, to set up a date with Ulster rivals Antrim.
A poor quality first half, watched by a 1,000-strong crowd in quite considerable heat, failed to catch fire as the right boot of Ger Heneghan dominated proceedings.
The Castlerea, St. Kevin's clubman launched over four frees in the opening half to leave his side with a 0-08 to 0-06 buffer for half time.
You wonder how the Rossies' 2006 season would have gone without the steadying presence of Heneghan – he topped the westerners' scoring charts with 0-34 in the National League and 1-12 during their SFC campaign.
Frustratingly for John Maughan's men, they remained in front until 14 minutes from time when the impact of corner back Seanie McDermott's sending-off hit them hard.
McDermott had been doing an excellent job man-marking Johnston up until that point, but his second bookable offence saw him take an early shower and an experimental Cavan outfit controlled the remainder of the game.
The 22-year-old Johnston made full use of the extra space and some tired legs to help full-forward Eddie O'Reilly nip in for the hosts' opening goal. That strike moved Cavan 1-11 to 0-13 and although the Rossies briefly threatened a comeback, Johnston's slide-rule finish on 68 minutes killed off their chances.
Cavan - Colm Anderson; Fergal Slowey, Cathal Collins, Keith Fannin; Martin Cahill (0-02), Michael Hannon, Mark McKeever (0-01); Enda King, Lorcan Mulvey; Sean Brady, Anthony Forde (0-03), Ronan Flanagan (0-01); Pierce West, Eddie O'Reilly (1-00), Sean Johnston (1-05 (3f)).
Subs used: Michael Brides for West, Ciaran Galligan for Slowey.
Roscommon - Geoffrey Claffey; Sean McDermott, Paddy O'Connor, John Nolan (Roscommon Gaels); John Tiernan (0-01), John Nolan, Stuart Daly; Michael Finneran, Brian Mullin; Ger Heneghan (0-07 (7f)), Seamus O'Neill (0-01), Sean Purcell; Ronan Cox (0-02 (1f)), Martin Connolly (0-01), Cathal Cregg (0-02).
Subs used: Niall Moran for Nolan (Roscommon Gaels), Enda Kenny for Cregg, Rory O'Connor for Mullin, Paul Moran for Connolly.
