Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SUPER START, DONEGAL
Kilcar maestro on song as Donegal beat Royals
PEERLESS Paddy Mcbrearty scored a remarkable treble yesterday as he powered a jittery Donegal side to victory over a brave Meath side in Ballybofey.
Mcbrearty, was playing his 100th game for his county, won the man of the match and was also named Ulster GAA Writer’s Player of the Month.
The Kilcar maestro finished with a tally of 1-6, 1-3 from play, in a game where it took a final quarter flourish for the winners to ease to a flattering nine points victory.
It looked grim for the winners as Meath led by 1-12 to 1-11 with just fifteen minutes to go.
They had just overturned a five point Donegal lead as Mickey Newman converted a penalty to give them clear momentum.
But Meath then hit two nervous wides before Donegal hit back as inevitably Mcbrearty and team captain Michael Murphy led the charge.
Further points from super-subs Eoin Mchugh and the most promising
Oisin Gallen edged them clear as they hit 1-8 to Meath’s 0-1 in that final quarter.
And Gallen garnished his role with a superbly taken goal in the 72nd minute
But, it was Mcbrearty’s superb goal (above) that was the key score in the first half.
Marvellous Mcbrearty nudged his opponent to create some space after getting a pass from Ciaran Thompson and skipped through the centre of the Meath defence before rocketing the ball to the roof of the net in the 26th minute.
The Kilcar man’s clinical finish was a huge score as it pushed an unimpressive Donegal into a 1-6 to 0-5 lead.
The impressive Cillian O’sullivan had Meath on the board after just 40, but this was cancelled out by a punched effort from Jamie Brennan.
Mcbrearty and Michael Murphy with a thundering effort put the home side into a 0-3 to 0-1 lead by the sixth minute.
But underdogs Meath were not going away as Bryan Menton, O’sullivan and Michael Newman kept them in touch.
Menton scored to leave the home side ahead by 0-5 to 0-4.
Donegal were getting increasingly frustrated before Mcbrearty’s clinical finish.
And when Niall O’donnell made it 0-7 to 1-5 it looked like the home side might canter clear.
But Meath clawed back through points from Bryan Mchugh and Newman with Michael Langan getting the last point of the half to put the home side ahead by 1-9 to 0-8 at the break.
The third quarter was a tense affair until Meath hit the target for 1-3 in a golden period between the 45th and 55th minutes.
But the Ulster champions greater strength in depth told in the end with the usual suspects walking tall as the game came to an end.