A ROYAL RUMBLE!
Wicklow U-20s hit for six as Meath go on the rampage
WICKLOW 1-9 MEATH 6-16
WICKLOW’S under-20 footballers slumped to a desperately disappointing 6-16 to 1-9 defeat to a very impressive Meath side in the Leinster championship on Monday evening in Joule Park Aughrim.
John Evans’ side were bested in most areas of the field over the course of the hour with the Meath men marching through for goals with worrying ease throughout the game.
Wicklow’s brief lead in this game came about after five minutes when the impressive Dan Kelly rifled home to the back of Adam McDermott’s net to make it 1-0 to 0-2 for the home side who were already looking very vulnerable up the middle.
Meath were attacking in numbers and were powering up the field with strong running in an attack that was being orchestrated and controlled by Ethan Devine of Na Fianna. With Devine appearing to move like a ghost and full-forward Conor O’Byrne dragging Wicklow’s Tom Maher out of position, it left acres of space for the superb half-back pair of Sean Reilly and Sean Ryan to launch vicious attacks on the Wicklow heartland and it was Reilly who grabbed Meath’s opening major; the attacking half-back would finish with 2-3 for the day after a devastating performance from a Wicklow point of view.
Meath were far too strong for Wicklow in the tackle, they possessed big men all over the field, they utterly dominated the Wicklow midfield and got to grips on the feisty Conor Byrne and Adam McHugh so as to limit any potential Wicklow damage up front. Wicklow also lost Tom Maher to injury early on.
It was abundantly clear from looking at the teams that the Meath side have been together and preparing for this Leinster championship for months now, as far back as January at least when they played Kildare in a challenge game. That level of preparation showed on Monday evening in a gloriously sunny Joule Park Aughrim as they dissected the Wicklow defence time and time again and left all those in attendance in absolutely no doubt as to what is required to be competitive at this level.
Meath’s work rate, their organisation, their running, defending and attacking were all in a very different place than Wicklow.
Such was the Royal’s focus and determination, every time Conor Byrne got the ball anywhere on the field he was immediately surrounded by three Meath players with few, if any, Wicklow colleagues in support in time.
Wicklow will need to recover from this as soon as possible as Laois come calling to Joule Park Aughrim on Monday evening in the second game of the group stages. The O’Moore men fell to Kildare by two points (1-17 to 4-6) despite having led most of the way.
Ashford’s Thomas Kearns was the stand out performer for Wicklow with Dan Kelly, Conor Byrne and Padraig O’Toole trying hard.
Other results: Kildare 1-17, Loais 4-6; Offaly 2-19, Carlow 1-10; Dublin 2-21, Longford 0-11; Westmeath 2-12, Wexford 1-12.
Scorers – Meath: Sean Reilly 2-3, Darragh Campion, Conor Moriarty 1-2 each, Frank O’Reilly (1-00 pen) 1-1, Jordan Morris (2f) 0-4, Sean Ryan 1-00, Shane McDonnell 0-2, Conor O’Byrne (f), Adam Murphy 0-1 each.
Wicklow: Dan Kelly (f) 1-2, Gearoid Murphy 0-3f, Rory Stokes (f),
Matthew Kelly, Conor Byrne, Jack Bellamy 0-1 each.
Meath: Adam McDermott; Robbie Clarke, Conor Harnan, Brian O’Reilly; Sean Reilly, Eanna O’Kelly Lynch, Sean Ryan; Darragh Campion, Adam Murphy; Eoin Smith, Ethan Devine, Frank O’Reilly; Conor Moriarty, Conor O’Byrne, Shane McDonnell. Subs: Oisin Martin for E Smith (42), Jason Scully for C O’Byrne (42), Adam Kealy for A Murphy (46), Cian O’Neill for S Reilly (46), Jordan Morris for C Moriarty (52), Ryan Hand for C Harnan (56).
Wicklow: Tom McGurk; Jack Cotter, Tom Maher, Aaron Curran; Fintan O’Shea, Jacques McCall, Thomas Kearns; Padraig O’Toole, Robert Kelly; Dan Kelly, Rory Stokes, Gearoid Murphy; Adam McHugh, Matthew Kelly, Conor Byrne. Subs: Jack Bellamy for J McCall (25), Conall O’Gallchobhair for T Maher (26), Kevin Mullhall for F O’Shea (44), Sean Gregory for A McHugh (46), Ciaran Coffey for M Kelly (52), Cathal Kelleher for R Stokes (66).
Referee: J Hickey (Carlow)