Bogey side strike again

WESTMEATH are fast becoming a bogey team for their Royal neighbours after ending Meath hopes at the opening hurdle of the Leinster U-21 FC at Mullingar last Wednesday evening.

Torrential rain throughout made this clash something of a lottery, but Meath contributed to their own downfall after leading by three points entering the final quarter.

First they had Brían Conlon sent off on receipt of a straight red card on 50 minutes, and that proved a turning point. Worse was to follow, though, with Meath ahead by the minimum when a point effort from Westmeath corner back Boidu Sayeh dropped short but through the fingers of Meath keeper Jonathan Lynch and into the net.

Two further players, one from each side - Robin Clarke and Finbar Coyne - were also dismissed following a mini-brawl before the final whistle, but at that stage Meath’s fate was sealed.

The disappointment was palpable afterwards in the Meath camp, but manager Barry Callaghan said the match shouldn’t be taken as an indicator of where Meath football is at present.

‘In a championship match with the conditions tonight, I don’t think you can jump to conclusions,’ a gutted Callaghan said.

‘I do think there is a good bunch of footballers in there and a lot of them can push on and play senior with the county and have success.

‘We are hugely disappointed for the players; they put in an enormous amount of work and probably that work wasn’t reflected on the pitch there tonight.

‘We can look back at a number of incidents. We hit the post a number of times, a lot of little things went wrong for us. Mistakes happen on a night like that and you are just hoping to keep them to a minimum.

‘We played some nice football at times. We felt at half-time that we hadn’t enough scores on the board for how we played. The second half, we started well but we didn’t maintain the momentum.

‘I didn’t see Brían Conlon’s sending-off, but if he deserved a red card it would be completely out of character for Brían. He was a tremendous loss to us.’

The unavailability of Gavin Mc- WITH a semi-final spot already assured, Meath manager Colm Coyle could afford to experiment in this Leinster MFL round three match at Darver on Saturday morning.

Louth were seeking their first win after two previous losses and they made a good start to proceedings with an early goal from John Gallagher.

The visitors had the advantage Gowan, Ronan Jones, Daire Rowe, Sean Meade, Caolach Halligan and St Colmcille’s James Conlon, who broke a bone in his foot in the first half of the All-Ireland Club final, wasn’t put forward as an excuse.

‘We put out the best team that we thought was available to us. Some lads were unavailable because of injuries, but we are not putting that forward as an excuse. We had a strong panel coming down. We made a few mistakes, we didn’t get enough scores when we were on top and paid the penalty for it,’ Callaghan concluded.

The hosts made the better start of the strong breeze throughout the opening half, but it was only in the second quarter that they took control of proceedings.

During that spell they hit seven points, to Louth’s one, to lead 0-10 to 1-1 at the break. Jordan Morris and Conall Aherne were on the mark in that dominant spell.

The hosts scored the opening two points of the second half, but to proceedings with the opening two points from Finbar Coyne inside six minutes. However, Meath replied with two quickfire scores from Conor Moriarty and the sides were still level after influential midfielder Sean Reilly hit the target.

Reilly then pointed Meath ahead and at the break the visitors were ahead 0-7 to 1-3 after Daire Campion and Thomas O’Reilly hit the last two scores of the half. Westmeath had earlier gone two points clear after Ronan O’Toole converted from the penalty spot.

Meath also hit the opening two points of the second half from David McLoughlin and O’Reilly. However, Westmeath hit the next three before further scores by O’Reilly (two frees) and McLoughlin had Meath leading 0-12 to 1-6 entering the final quarter. They failed to add to their tally after that, though. their challenge fizzled out after that as Meath regained control of proceedings. Louth did have a couple of goal chances but were denied by fine saves from Meath and St Colmcille’s goalkeeper Andrew Beakey.

Morris eventually took his tally of points to eight, while the Meath goal came from Saran O Fionnagain, with Dan Corcoran raising a green flag for Louth late on.

Meath now play either Tipperary or Carlow in the semi-final.