Wexford and Roscommon will have to meet again after a hard-fought 70 minutes and two halves of extra-time failed to separate them at a wet Wexford Park.
Roscommon, smarting from their recent Connacht semi-final hammering by Mayo, put it up to the hosts and showed their battling qualities throughout, with a Senan Kilbride point setting up a replay in the end.
Points from PJ Banville and Ciaran Lyng, towards the end of the first half of extra-time, had nudged Wexford into a 1-08 to 0-10 lead but Kilbride stepped up to level this absorbing tie in an uneventful second half.
Ciaran Lyng’s goal after 30 seconds had propelled Wexford to a 1-03 to 0-04 half-time lead, but Roscommon, bidding for their first win in the qualifiers since 2003, should really have been ahead.
Roscommon manager Fergal O’Donnell took the scalpel to the team that lost to Mayo by 20 points, with two of the seven changes enforced.
Paul Gleeson, Sean Purcell and David Keenan were introduced in defence, while Derek Connellan took the centre-forward spot and Fintan Cregg, Senan Kilbride and Cathal Cregg formed a new-look full-forward line.
Wexford, beaten Leinster finalists last year, gave a first Championship start to wing-back Kieran Kennedy in the only change to the side that beat Offaly last weekend. A back injury kept former All-Star Matty Forde on the sidelines.
The Model men roared out of the blocks, breaking forward off the throw-in and Lyng found himself well-placed to fire a left-footed shot beyond goalkeeper Geoffrey Claffey and into the far left corner of the net.
But Roscommon recovered well from that early setback, with the changes in personnel having the desired effect and midfielders Michael Finneran and Brian Higgins got through a huge amount of work, giving their side a plentiful supply of ball.
Scores were proving hard to come by, with conditions hampered by the heavy rainfall, and Wexford remained 1-00 to 0-00 ahead until Brian Higgins landed the visitors’ first point in the 16th minute.
As both sides began to find some rhythm, Wexford kept ahead with Shane Cullen raising a white flag. Donie Shine (free) and Kilbride added to the Rossies’ total, but five wides dented the westerners’ hopes.
Shane Roche and Cullen then landed two successive points for Wexford but Kildare had the final say for Roscommon, sweeping a difficult free over the crossbar from an acute angle.
The second half was again quite an even affair. Roscommon put the earlier wides behind them, with Kilbride and Shine, their two leading lights in attack, squaring up the game at 0-06 to 1-03.
It was tit for tat as Wexford hit back with two more points. Substitute Eric Bradley made use of a breaking ball to make an immediate impact and then Lyng edged Wexford into a 1-05 to 0-06 lead.
In an exciting finale, O’Donnell’s charges kept plugging away and when Kilbride kicked the best point of the afternoon, on the hour mark, Roscommon were back within one.
Shine then levelled with six minutes to go and although Cullen converted a free for Wexford, Roscommon substitute Kevin Higgins tied up the sides again at 0-09 to 1-06.
Wexford engineered a couple of scoring chances in injury-time. Lyng had the best of them but he slashed his right-sided free wide of the posts and Roscommon survived to take the game into extra-time.
After two misses from frees, Roscommon took the lead in the first half of extra-time when Kevin Higgins found the target. Both sides predictably tired but Wexford roused themselves with pointed efforts from Banville and Lyng (free).
But Wexford’s search for a killer score in the second period of extra-time was a fruitless one as a final Kilbride point gave Roscommon a well-merited draw.
