Meath 1-13 Westmeath 0-10

Neither victory nor defeat counts for much in the opening round of the O’Byrne Cup, although try telling that to Westmeath. After 20 months without a competitive victory of any sort the last thing they needed was another defeat.

Manager Tom Cribbin is hardly to blame, given this was his first competitive game since taking over late last year, but with Westmeath’s losing streak now stretching back to May 2013 - when they beat Carlow - he admits that player confidence is worryingly low.

“We need to make that breakthrough, get a competitive win, to give them that confidence,” said Cribbin. “When you have gone so long without a win, and probably the slagging and stuff they got last year, as some of them said in there, they are nearly nervous walking down the street now with a Westmeath bag, because lads would be kind of smirking at you.

“So to get through that confidence barrier with them is going to be very, very tough. We are trying to. But there was some very silly stuff going on between us, beforehand, where you could see lads were shocking nervous altogether. I was trying to tell them it’s only the O’Byrne Cup, this is a learning thing for the league, and still they were very nervous.

“We went three points up, in the second-half, then Meath brought on a few strong players, just cut straight through us. We didn’t have an answer and when they got ahead of us with the goal, we didn’t have the belief.”

Indeed that was the story of the game, as Meath’s experience off the bench - especially the likes of Bryan Menton, Donal Keogan and David Bray - coupled with the excellent Graham Reilly, soon struck down whatever little confidence Westmeath might have started with. It was close for the first 45 minutes, before Meath struck 1-6 without reply (Bray’s solo goal, in the 55th minute, coming just 30 seconds after his introduction), and with Reilly finishing with six points from play, there was no denying Meath’s superior class in the end.

“We are under no illusions,” added Cribbin.”Meath were trying an awful lot of lads there, but they have this belief in themselves, that they’re able to beat us, every time they go out. We’re the opposite.

“The pace of the game in the first-half was very slow and even simple frees, we just didn’t have the confidence to even kick a 14-yard free over the bar. We played two challenge matches, implemented a game-plan to the letter of the law, but here we didn’t believe in ourselves. It made us look like we were all over the shop.”

Substitute Shane Dempsey hit two nice points, although Cribbin was openly critical of more seasoned players like Denis Glennon, who pulled up injured after 30 minutes: “To me, it didn’t look like he was switched on enough, for such an experienced player, there were one or two balls, maybe, he could have went for a little bit harder. A couple of passes were 70 per cent.”

No such worries for Mick O’Dowd, the Meath manager happy with the victory, while knowing it really counts for nothing: “The nature of the O’Byrne Cup is that everyone gets out of it what they want, basically, Some fellas need experience, and there were eight or nine lads there playing their first game for Meath. There were another few who have been training hard recently and need games, and then we introduced lads as the game went on, and they made a big difference, which was good to see.”

MEATH: A Markey; D Brennan, C McGill, N Judge; C McConnell, N Shorthall, D Dalton; H Rooney, A Flanagan; S Tobin (0-1, a free), D Carroll (0-3, all frees), G Reilly (0-6); F Toolan, J Queeney (0-1), R O’Dowd.

Subs: D Tobin for Judge, D Keogan for Brennan, B Menton (0-2) for Dalton (all half time); J Wallace for F Toolan (42 mins), D Bray (1-0) O’Dowd (53 mins), T McCullen for Carroll (64 mins).

WESTMEATH: D Quinn; D Dolan, T Mescal, K Maguire; D Lynch (0-1), P Holloway, J Egan; J Stapleton, G Egan (0-4, all frees); D Whelan, D Duffy, K Martin (0-1); D Glennon, C McCormack (0-1), A Coffey (0-1).

Subs: S Dempsey (0-2) for Glennon (31 mins, inj), L Smyth for McCormack (42 mins), J Rock for Maguire (45 mins, black card), J Dolan for Coffey (48 mins), P Sharry for Whelan (50 mins), D McCormack for Duffy (60 mins).

Referee: Brendan Cawley (Kildare)