Minor footballers suffer Meath defeat

Meath 2-10 Westmeath 0-10

Damien Maher

Westmeath minor footballers suffered a six-point defeat at the hands of Meath in the Leinster MFC, at the Coralstown/Kinnegad GAA grounds on Wednesday evening.

Meath swooped for two decisive goals, one in either half, and despite the heroic efforts of Eoin Kevlihan's Westmeath side, they failed to turn this game around.

Ironically, it started brightly for the Lake County with the opening two points of the evening, but once Meath scored the first goal in the ninth minute, they took a lead they were never to relinquish.

At half-time the visitors led by 1-3 to 0-3 and just when Westmeath appeared to have gained momentum with three unanswered points from Shane Cully and substitute Kealan Connell, Meath pounced for the decisive score after 50 minutes. Corner forward Ben Corkery ghosted inside the opposing cover to score his second goal of the evening and with that went Westmeath's chances of securing a winning start in this competitive group.

Meath's substitutes made a major impact, with John Harkin (who scored 0-3) quite impressive and Michael McIvor (who was lined out to start at midfield but actually came on in the second half) also making a telling contribution.

Westmeath will now face Louth next Wednesday evening in Ardee and with three teams qualifying from the group, they still have every chance, but they will need to recover from this setback.

SCORERS - Meath: B Corkery 2-1, C Commons, J Harkin (2f) 0-3 each, D Donnelly, P Crawley (m), B Smyth (f) 0-1 each. Westmeath: S Cully 0-4 (2f), J Mitchell 0-2 (1m), A Curran, C Geary, D O'Connor, K Connell 0-1 each.

Meath: Brayden Colfer; Oliver Maloney, Oisín O'Neill, John Gormley; Cormac Liggan, Thomas Sheridan, Patrick White; Cian Commons, Oisín Yorke; Billy Smyth, Eamon Armstrong, Cian Duggan; Pat Crawley, David Donnelly, Ben Corkery. Subs: Michael McIvor for Duggan (34), Naoise Maguire for White (38), John Harkin for Smyth (43), Andrew Gormley for Crawley (60+1), Manny Magno for Commons (inj., 60+2).

Westmeath: Callum Butler Dolan; Jack Murtagh, Cian Whitney, Aidan Maguire; Conor Leech, Neale Pierson, Aodhan Curran; Eoin Conlon, James Mitchell; Cillian Geary, Daire O'Connor, Callum Rigney; Shane Cully, R Kelly, John Casey. Subs: Matthew Thornton for Rigney (35), Daire O'Brien for Leech (46), Kealan Connell for O'Connor (48), Oisín O'Hara for Geary (inj., 54), Conor Daly for Curran (inj., 59).

Referee: Kevin Williamson (Offaly).