Goalkeeper Paddy Collum's late penalty sealed a thoroughly deserved victory for Longford over a woeful Westmeath in this afternoon's ESB Leinster Minor Football Championship quarter-final at a sun-kissed Cusack Park in Mullingar.

Ciaran Fox's charges belied their underdog status with an impressive display which should have yielded a far bigger victory. Star forward Mark Hughes missed two guilt-edged goal chances in the first half and also had a goal disallowed after only three minutes.

Westmeath, by contrast, were totally disjointed and only managed two points from play with team captain John Heslin providing four of their scores.

Longford looked set to pay for their first half wastefulness when two Heslin frees reduced the margin to the minimum with eight minutes remaining, but two minutes later, Hughes was brought down for a penalty.

Aand, just as he had done in the last round against Carlow, Paddy ‘big red’ Collum made the long trek up the field to beat his opposite number Darren Brady and give the visitors a memorable victory.

Longford took the game to Ger Heavin's fancied side from the off and had opened up a 0-2 to 0-1 lead before David McCormack levelled for Westmeath.

But unanswered points from Hughes, James McGivney and Darren ‘chippy’ Farely left the visitors 0-5 to 0-2 ahead at the break.

Indeed, they would have been out of sight had Hughes not spurned two goal chances late in the half.

It was Westmeath's turn to be wasteful in the third quarter when they shot a number of bad wides and also dropped the ball into goalkeeper Collum's hands on more than one occasion.

Ballymahon Secondary School student Trevor English made it 0-6 to 0-3 before McCormack shot into the sidenetting. Hughes replied for Longford before Heslin left the minimum in it with two frees.

But Collum's penalty made victory safe for Longford with Heslin's fourth point, which came just before he was sent off for a second bookable offence in injury-time, proving to be no more than a consolation score for the disappointing home side.