Westmeath 1-10 Meath 0-8WESTMEATH HAVE never defeated their neighbours and age-old rivals Meath in senior championship football and their victories over the Royal County in the National Football League have been few and far between.
Therefore, there was understandable elation among the home fans in the 5,800 attendance at Cusack Park, Mullingar, yesterday when Westmeath emerged as totally deserving five-point victors, thereby ending a 35-year wait
The win was all the sweeter for Tomás Ó Flatharta's charges as they lined out without former All Star forward Dessie Dolan, who was injured in the previous game against Armagh. Meath were also understrength and they lost influential forward Stephen Bray early in the game through injury.
But, overall, they produced a dismal display against very hungry opponents. Wind-assisted Westmeath had by far the better of the first half and led 0-5 to 0-2 at the interval.
Their advantage should have been much greater as many of their eight wides were from very scoreable situations while they also lobbed several balls tamely into the grateful arms of Meath custodian Brendan Murphy.
The losers were also guilty of a number of bad misses, including a range of kickable frees. The best goal chance to either side fell late in the half to Westmeath's Michael Greene but his close-range shot was smothered by Murphy.
In added-time, the winners were reduced to 14 men when right half forward Fergal Wilson was red-carded by Pat McEnaney, on the advice of his linesman, after appearing to strike out at Nigel Crawford.
Earlier in the game his team-mate Martin Flanagan was lucky to escape with just a verbal warning after an altercation with Meath veteran Graham Geraghty, who was well curbed on the day by 2004 All-Star John Keane.
Westmeath's intensity continued on the change of ends and, with 15 minutes to go, they led 0-9 to 0-4. Outstanding left half back Damien Healy then came forward and availed of a slightly miskicked pass from Tommy Cleary, before rounding Brendan Murphy and sliding the ball into the empty net.
Crucially, within a minute, Westmeath goalkeeper Gary Connaughton reacted brilliantly to stop Anthony Moyles's low effort from finding the net.
Westmeath's Denis Glennon was a constant danger when introduced and his three points from play, including a wonderful effort in the the 20th minute of the second half, were to prove crucial. Meath lost Peter Byrne to a second yellow card with 10 minutes of normal time remaining and this time around there was no late rally to rescue the visitors.
WESTMEATH: G Connaughton; F Boyle, K Gavin, J Keane; M Ennis, D Heavin, D Healy (1-1); D Duffy, M Flanagan (0-1), F Wilson (0-2, two frees), A Mangan (0-1), D O'Donoghue, M Greene, G Dolan, T Cleary (0-2, 0-1 free). Sub: D Glennon (0-3) for Dolan.
MEATH: B Murphy; C MacGuinness, D Fay, C McGill; P Howard, A Moyles (0-1), C King; N Crawford, M Ward (0-1); P Byrne (0-1), N Mooney, G Reilly; S Bray (0-1), J Queeney, G Geraghty (0-1). Subs: A Nestor (0-1) for Bray, E Harrington for Mooney, B Meade (0-1) for Queeney, S Kenny (0-1) for Reilly, T Skelly (for MacGuinness).
Referee: Pat McEnaney (Monaghan).
