Sligo 3-19 Louth 3-10 Sligo collected its first ever Nicky Rackard Cup on Sunday when they saw of Louth with nine points to spare in the competition's decider at Croke Park. An outstanding haul of 1-8 from play from the Yeats County's full forward Keith Raymond was the telling difference in an entertaining final at headquarters. It was Louth who got off on the right foot in the opening stages with Sean Conroy's goal setting up a 1-3 to 0-1 advantage on seven minutes, with Raymond's first score of the evening the only response for Mickey Galvin's men. Sligo rallied though thereafter and hit two goals from Raymond and Joe Bannerton, which were backed up by three more singles from the Sligo full-forward and Paul Seevers' frees to pave the way for a comfortable 2-12 to 2-5 lead at the break. Diarmuid Murphy hit the net for the Wee County inside five minutes of the restart from a 20 metre and but received a second yellow card on the hour which ended his afternoon prematurely. From there both sides traded scores until Louth had the deficit down to four coming into the final stages, but when Seevers' 50-metre effort from the right flank hit the net there was no doubting that Sligo had made history in taking their first Nicky Rackard Cup. Sligo - C Brennan; F Coyne, W Gill, R Cox; D Clarke, M Burke (0-1), L Reidy; J Mullins, D Collery; M Gilmartin (0-1), D Burke (0-2), P Seevers (1-4) (3f); L Cadden (0-1), K Raymond (1-8), J Bannerton (1-1). Subs: C Herity for Cadden, M Shelley (0-1) for Bannerton, C O'Mahony for Gilmartin. Louth - S Smith; C Kerrigan, T Teefy, B Hasset; D Callan (0-2), A Carter (0-1) (1f), J Carter; T Hillard, S Kerrigan; S Fennell, R Byrne (1-0), G Smith (0-1); S Conroy (1-0), S Callan, D Murphy (1-6) (1-4f). Subs: M Kirwan for Teefy, D Dunne for Smith, E McCarthy for Kerrigan, C Connolly for Fennell, P Dunne for Conroy. Ref - S Whelan (Wexford) Tweet

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