The most telling commentary on this awful affair is that the two loudest cheers of the second half were reserved for whimsical moments. In the 43rd minute, Stephen McGinnity tapped a close-in free over the bar to slash Meath's lead to 11 points. It was Monaghan's first score of the afternoon.
A rumbling roar rippled around the approximate attendance of 3,500 at Pairc Tailteann, Navan. Naturally it was more derisive than an expression of encouragement and even this scoreboard breakthrough had been threatened by the visitors' apparent attempt - by scuffling with Meath's defence - to get referee Paddy Russell to reverse the award.
Four minutes later, with the score reading 1-10 to 0-1, right corner back Mark O'Reilly came up the field careering through Monaghan's cover before driving the ball wide. The crowd, appreciating O'Reilly's undimmed interest in the match, gave him a rousing ovation.
In their opening Church and General NFL Division One B match a fortnight ago, Meath failed to score against Clare in the first half. This time they failed to concede a score, leading 1-7 to zero at the interval.
Even in the second half, only two frees from McGinnity got past the home defence for what was a pretty wretched defeat for last season's League semi-finalists.
This was a strange match because Monaghan never threw in the towel and weren't hammered for possession as disproportionately as the scoreline would suggest. It was just that their finishing was comical.
What was simply happening in the first half was that Meath were making their attacks count by racking up the scores. Not that this was a relentlessly economical display by the home side. Too often they failed to find either the right ball or the right finish and so it was on an incremental basis that the match slipped out of sight.
Maybe it was the wind; Meath were noticeably less accurate into the same goal. But whether from play or from dead balls, Monaghan found scores impossible to come by. This wasn't simply a matter of poor shot selection because the frees missed by Stephen McGinnity and more particularly Padraig Treanor were kickable and Cyril Ronaghan had a great opening as early as the seventh minute.
Ollie Murphy's fifth-minute goal set Meath on the way, but it was the drip-feed of subsequent points and the succession of wides from Monaghan - nine in the first half, unredeemed by a single score - which proved decisive.
It was a busy afternoon for the referee. Paddy Russell was a late appointment to the match and he found himself flashing the experimental yellow card at a great rate. Two Monaghan players, Paul O'Connor and Cyril Ronaghan, together with Hank Traynor, Graham Geraghty, Donal Curtis, Ned Kearney and substitute Gerr McGovern from Meath were cautioned.
Furthermore the players seemed vexed by the other experimental provisions and were whistled up on several occasions for falling foul of the newly-defined hand-pass.
Monaghan manager Eamonn McEneaney will prefer to draw a veil over the whole afternoon, but proceedings did provide mournful confirmation that his resources can't indefinitely sustain the sort of drain which has seen a number of leading players in the county emigrate over the last 12 months.
Sean Boylan has been through this sort of fixture so often that he probably sees little difference between winning a NFL match in November by 14 points or losing one by the same margin. Yet the match provided a useful workout for some of the newer faces - and newer deployments - on the Meath panel.
All the relevant players appeared to take it all fairly seriously and the winning effort was sustained long beyond the natural competitive limit of the match. Nigel Crawford of new county champions Dunboyne played well. Even if centrefield wasn't a hive of activity (Monaghan's UCD Sigerson star Joe Coyle had a particularly languid day), Crawford caught the eye with his distribution.
The wacky, up-and-down-the-field lives of new captain Graham Geraghty and Barry Callaghan continue with the two swapping their starting championship positions on either 40. Geraghty did fine, motoring into attack with increasing enthusiasm in the second half; Callaghan wasn't as prominent.
Elsewhere Ollie Murphy looked to be regaining the sharpness of last year which deserted him over the summer and was on hand to convert great work by Crawford and Nigel Nestor in the fifth minute for the only goal of the match.
Cormac Sullivan reminded all of his dependability as Conor Martin's goalkeeping understudy by making a fine save from McGinnity in injurytime. But Darren Fay was outstanding, quickly disposing of the challenge from Mark Daly - and anyone else advanced to try him out - and moving around the defence with easy assurance.
Considering they were missing their big three - Trevor Giles, Tommy Dowd and John McDermott - this was as creditable an outing as Meath could have wished for this time of the year.
Meath: C Sullivan; M O'Reilly, D Fay, H Traynor; P Reynolds, G Geraghty (capt; 0-1), D Curtis; N Crawford, N Nestor; N Kearney (0-1), B Callaghan (0-1), P Shankey; R Magee (0-5, one free), O Murphy (1-3, one point from a free), J Devine (0-2). Subs: R Kealy for Devine and F McMahon for Callaghan (both 49 mins); G McGovern for Traynor (52 mins).
Monaghan: G Murphy; P McKenna, D McDermott, N Marron; D McArdle, E Murphy (capt), P Hughes; J Coyle, P McCaul; D Swift, P O'Connor, C Ronaghan; S McGinnity (0-2, frees), M Daly, P Treanor. Subs: D Freeman for Daly (24 mins); D Smyth for Treanor (37 mins); D McKenna for Swift (58 mins).
Referee: P Russell (Tipperary).
