Offaly senior football star in car accident day after inspiring club to big IFC win

OFFALY senior football star, Dylan Hyland was one of the passengers in a two vehicle car accident on Monday morning, the day after inspiring his club Raheen to an impressive win in the first round of the Offaly Intermediate Football Championship.

Hyland and a Raheen team mate, who was driving the car, and the two females in the other vehicle were brought to Tullamore Hospital after the crash about halfway between Geashill and Ballinagar.

The accident happened at approximately 8.20am and emergency services and gardai were rushed to the scene. All four people were brought to the Midland Regional Hospital with “non life threatening injuries”. The two females in the car were in their 50s and 80s and one of them has “serious” injuries according to gardai. The two males are in their 20s.

Gardai are investigating the accident and the road was closed for most of the day on Monday but has since reopened.

There had been early speculation that Dylan Hyland had broken his leg but it is understood that this is not the case.

The previous day, Hyland had been the difference between the teams as Raheen had a comfortable 2-10 to 0-6 win over parish neighbours, Ballinagar in the first round of the Intermediate Football Championship in Daingean.

That game had the unusually early start of 10am – it had been originally fixed for Ballycommon on Saturday but was called off because of a water logged pitch. It was originally refixed for Tuesday but with both sides having players going away on holidays this week, they agreed to play it on Sunday morning.

Beaten in the last two intermediate finals, Raheen took their time before confirming their favourites tag against Ballinagar who won the Junior Football Championship last year. Playing against the wind in the first half, Ballinagar competed very well early on but Raheen got on top coming up to half time. Hyland stamped his class on the game in the second quarter and while he had a handful of uncharacteristic wides, his excellent late goal helped the winners to a 1-6 to 0-4 interval lead.

While Ballinagar had the wind in the second half, the result was a formality at that stage. Dylan Hyland contributed the bulk of the Raheen scores, kicking points from frees and play in a vry good 1-9 haul and a James Lalor goal inside the last ten minutes finally killed Ballinagar off – Ballinagar only managed two points in the second half, one point from play in all and their forwards struggled.

Geashill man Hyland had an outstanding year for Offaly senior footballers this year. An exciting underage player, he spent some years in Australia before returning home a couple of years ago. He was arguably Offaly's best player in the National Football League and Leinster Senior Football Championship this year and was certainly in their top three. He displayed a ferocious work ethic as he was asked to channel back to help his defence and midfield and then break forward at pace while he also contributed some important scores.

He did not look as enthusiastic about the Tailteann Cup after Offaly suffered an unlucky extra time loss to Louth in the Leinster semi-final. His season ended when he was red carded in their last group game, a bad defeat to Cavan. It has now emerged that Hyland has got a two match ban instead of the normal one match for his sending off. Hyland was sanctioned for an initial second half incident that left a Cavan player on the ground but was also reported for an offence in a subsequent melee as the Ulster side reacted – Offaly midfielder Jack McEvoy was also red carded in that melee.

Both missed Offaly's defeat by Wexford in the quarter-final and Hyland will also miss Offaly's first game in the National Football League as a result.

Raheen's group 2 win sets them up nicely in the championship while Daingean showed very promising form in the other game in that section. They defeated Tullamore by 2-11 to 1-8 and showed that they have the potential to win this championship.

In group 1, Erin Rovers had to dig deep to beat Ferbane by 1-8 to 1-4 in a low scoring derby match while St Brigid's had a very good 1-15 to 1-8 win over Shannonbridge in a match that was postponed until Monday evening.

Round 2 fixtures take place on the weekend of July 28-30 and are:

Group 1

Shannonbridge v Erin Rovers and Ferbane v St Brigid's.

Group 2

Raheen v Daingean and Ballinagar v Tullamore.