Sligo 2-15 Leitrim 0-10
Goals from Kyle Cawley and Darragh Cummins helped Sligo ease past neighbours Leitrim at Markievicz Park.
Sligo led by 0-12 to 0-04 at the interval and never surrendered control of the clash, with the second-half goals sealing their biggest ever win in the All-Ireland qualifiers.
Sligo surrendered an eight-point interval lead to Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final but this time round they were never threatened and ran out convincing winners.
Leitrim, having beaten Waterford for only their second ever qualifier win, were hoping to win two in the backdoor system in the same season, but they never looked like recovering when they had the wind.
Sligo used the wind well when they had it in the opening half and full-forward Niall Murphy was a superb target man, picking off 0-05 in the first-half to break Leitrim’s hearts.
Niall Carew’s men settled well and Mark Breheny gave the home supporters in the crowd of 4,227 plenty to shout about with two early frees.
Emlyn Mulligan got Leitrim off the mark with a point after six minutes, but Murphy took over after that and landed the first of his excellent scores from the left.
Leitrim just had no answer to Murphy’s power and he added two more before Breheny’s first from play pushed Sligo 0-07 to 0-01 ahead at the end of the opening quarter.
Ronan Kennedy responded with a free for Leitrim and Mulligan got another, but it was all Sligo and full-back Kevin McDonnell scored an inspirational point when he went forward.
Leitrim had to wait until 25 minutes for their first point from play when Donal Wrynn found the target to halve the gap to 0-08 to 0-04.
But Adrian Marren pointed from the right for Sligo before Murphy struck two more splendid efforts, while a point from a free from Marren made it 0-12 to 0-4 at the break, after Wyrnn had hit an upright with a fisted goal effort for Leitrim in stoppage time.
Sligo resumed control after the re-start and Cawley soloed through from the left to shoot to the net after 49 minutes.
There was never any chance of Leitrim staging a comeback after that and a dismal evening drew to a close when they they finished the game with 14 men when Gary Reynolds was black-carded in stoppage time with all six subs on the field.
Cummins rubbed salt in the wound when he soloed through to wrap it up for Sligo in the closing stages with their second goal from close range.
Sligo: A Devaney; D Maye, K McDonnell (0-01), G O’Kelly-Lynch; Keelan Cawley, E Flanagan, Brendan Egan; J Hynes (0-01), A McIntyre; A Marren (0-03, 1f, 1 ’45), M Breheny (0-04, 2f), N Ewing; Brian Egan (0-01), N Murphy (0-5), Kyle Cawley (1-00).
Subs: C Breheny for Hynes (47 mins), P Clark for Brian Egan (51 mins), L Henry for Maye (63 mins), N Gaughan for O’Kelly-Lynch (65 mins), C Nally for Kyle Cawley (67 mins), D Cummins (1-00) for Marren (69 mins).
Leitrim: B Flynn; P Maguire, R Gallagher, K McHugh; S McWeeney, G Reynolds, T Mulvey; S Moran, P McGowan; C Gilheaney, E Mulligan (0-04f), K Conlan; R Kennedy (0-01f), D Wrynn (0-01), J Rooney.
Subs: N Woods for Rooney (19 mins), D Sweeney (0-01) for McGowan (33 mins), N O’Donnell (0-02) for Gilheaney (34 mins), A Croal for Gallagher (36 mins), C Gaffney (0-01) for Mulvey (51 mins), R O’Rourke for Moran (60 mins).
Referee: Sean Hurson (Tyrone)
