Iar Mhí v An Mhí

[thejuice]

4 points to 1 for westmeath. Meath are playing brutal from midfield forward.

Brendan Murphy     (capt)

Cormac McGuinness
Darren Fay
Cormac Magill

Padraig Howard
Anthony Moyles
Caoimhin King

Nigel Crawford
Mark Ward

Peadar Byrne
Cian Ward didnt start, Niall Mooney started
Graham Reilly

Stephen Bray injured - Nestor on instead
Jamie Queeney
Graham Geraghty

[thejuice]

Fergal Wilson sent off for punching

5-2 to westmeath almost halftime

[agorm]

Westmeath 1-10 Meath 0-8.
This was quite possibly the worst Meath performance that I have seen in 25 years of going to see them play. It has demonstrated that we have no strength in depth and that, without our first choice forward line in particular, we are going nowhere fast. There was no cohesion among the forwards and our midfielders, Crawford in particular, fail to make  good use of the ball that they do get. Defensively I thought that only Fay and King played well. Fay was inspirational at times but did struggle for pace a few times when Glennon came on. It was alarming how easily Westmeath cut through the Meath defence considfering Meath players were significantly outnumbering Westmeath players in that area of the pitch at that time.
Westmeath were very good defensively and did not allow Meath players time on the ball. It took them quite a while to put Meath away. In fact Meath were fortunate to be still in the game at half time following Wilson's sending off for a disgraceful act. I am sure he wont be telling his grandchildren about this part of his footballing career.

[gerrykeegan]

Too far away from wilsons sending off to comment. Thought our backs were suberb. Donal O'D had a great match. Big support from the Royals, we thought we were out numbered. Duffy is starting to look more the man than gangly boy he was. Great day for us, myself and the rest of the Keegans thought about driving through the town with horns blarring! Beating the Royals when Geraghty is on the pitch is a moment to savour!

[Croí na hÉireann]

                           

[Shamrock Shore]

Congrats to WH.

The description of the sending off was interesting. "Fergal Wilson was sent off for dispatching a rabbit punch to the solar plexus of his opponent off the ball"

Beats the usual "for an off the ball incident".

[Mentalman]

I'm not even going to try to analyse this one, just enjoy it/ The last time Westmeath beat Meath was the year I was born...I hope I'm not waiting until I'm 70 to witness the next one. I really was an extraordinary whodoo to have over your neighbours, and even if it was only the league, it's great that it's broken.

[thejuice]

Well done to Westmeath, sounded like a truely dedicated performance. Really dissapointing from our point of view. I can take losing but such toothless displays are hard to swallow. While its too early in the season to be pressing the panic button, it does have worrying signs. Especially when some of our first choice forwards are missing. No point blaming injuries, you need 30 solid players to win an All-Ireland.

Coupled withthe U-21 performance I know some people in the county are all doom and gloom but I wouldnt be too pessimistic.

[Hardy]

It doesn't sound very encouraging. I wouldn't worry too much about league results and for me, trying out some lads and giving them a bit of experience is what the league is for. But if all it's showing us is that we have very little depth, that's worrying. Also, I'm disappointed to see no new options being tried at midfield. I think Crawford's best days are behind him and if we're to make the next step up from a promising championship campaign last year, then we need a real solution to the problems in the middle. Are there really no options?

[Jinxy]

The perfect candidate for midfield is Moyles. The problem is we need him in several other positions as well.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Like Mentalman I'm loathe to analyse this yet, save to say well done lads, but there's still loads of improvement needed. Match should have been over at half-time, 8 wides, most of them scorable, shocking. Still Dessie still to come back so that augers well. Yesterday confirmed to me that we have to play Dessie and Denis inside. Absolutely delighted for Heals, Flan and the older guard, great to see Tosh swinging over a couple of pints, 35 years after his uncle was on duty... Hopefully we won't have to read the likes of what was in the Sindo yesterday for many a year... Couple of great quotes from Heals on Hoganstand, reprinted with kind permission...

Healy insists Westmeath had 'no baggage'
03 March 2008

Man of the match Damien Healy insisted that Westmeath weren't burdened by past failures as they claimed a first NFL victory over arch rivals Meath since 1973 in impressive fashion at Mullingar.

"A lot of people were going on about this 35-year mullarkey," the brilliant wing back said.

"But this is a young team with no baggage on their shoulders. They had their own names to make today and they did. It's great, but it's only a league match in March and this division is going to be a real scrap."

On his 50th minute goal, which came about after Tommy Cleary's mis-kicked point effort luckily fell into his unmarked path, Healy joked: "I asked Tosh if it was a pass and he assured me it was! He said he saw me drifting in, but sure I didn't even see myself drifting in."

[AN other]

Great to get the win but still plenty of room for improvement past midfield. The fact that we only won by 5 points with the amount of possession and opportunities that we had is worrying. That aside, plenty of praise is due to the midfield and defence.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Post on Hoganstand...

"John Bruton! Hector Ó hEochagáin! Pierce Brosnan! Tommy Tiernan! Sean Boylan! Francis Beaufort! Dylan Moran! Colm Coyle - can you hear me, Colm Coyle! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!"