A HALF-TIME in Pairc Tailteann they booed the referee off the field. That protest against punctiliousness was as animated as anyone became on an afternoon that promised much but ran disappointingly to form.

So it is that Meath face into a messy three-way play off to avoid relegation. Yesterday's National Football League programme was hinged in such way that, had this result swung differently, Meath would have been playing off for the right to advance to the knockout stages. Instead Derry go on to play Laois.

That Meath were earnest about the immediate future became evident early on, when they huffed and puffed and created sufficient chances to blow Derry's house down. By half-time Meath had amassed 10 wides and a two-point lead.

A bruising first round championship encounter with Dublin is only a short while away now, and through yesterday's first half Sean Boylan must have made a million mental notes. His team still needs tinkering with, especially up front.

PJ Gillic played at full forward, but Gillic's sturdy talents are best deployed further out where he has the chance to run at people. The quick turn isn't his forte, and he laboured in the company of Derry's inventive young full back David O'Neill. No threat to Brendan O'Reilly on the horizon.

Elsewhere up front results were mixed. Favourite son Trevor Giles returned, and despite doing much that was noteworthy he won't be pasting any reports into the scrapbook this morning.

Graham Geraghty dipped in and out of the action without ever becoming central to the plot, and generally, as this team matures, one wonders if a full forward line of the calibre of O'Rourke, Stafford and Flynn will emerge, and if not can the others improvise sufficiently to get by.

The best attack created by Meath before the break saw Giles hit a typically perceptive, 40-yard pass into the arms of Gerahy who would have scored had goalie Jonathon Kelly not made a magnificent fingertip save.

Yesterday a little more improvisation and creativity was in order from Meath.

Derry, dutifully earnest about the secondary competition for yet another year, defended dourly and well. 1993 and all that is quite some time ago and Derry are finally learning to forge the next generation of players.

The evidence suggests that come the summer Derry will have a full back line capable of shutting the shop at any time. Both Emmet McKeever and David O'Neill played well. The wing backs Gary Coleman and Karl Diamond were allowed their moments of youthful adventure under the supervision of Henry Downey.

In the middle of the field Derry are imposingly big. The central pairing of Tohill and Dougan was augmented yesterday by a half forward line that included recognised midfielders in Dermot Heaney and Ruari Boylan. Injury deprived us of the chance to see Joe Brolly and Joe Cassidy play together in the full forward line, but Ronan Rocks, the young player behind Loup's good Derry championship run two season ago, made a worthwhile impression.

Derry's half back line no longer looks panic stricken when players run at them. The forwards are mobile and have a few noteworthy scoretakers in their midst. If the confidence and unity returns, Brian Mullins would have a long summer to look forward to.

In the second half, when the game hung for the taking, it was Derry who had the wit to seize it. They narrowed the gap to a point soon after the break, when Paul Farrell knocked the ball over the bar when scoring a goal looked like the easiest of his options.

They kept within a point of Meath until the game went into the final quarter. Trevor Giles saw a penalty sublimely saved by the impressive Kelly, and then Derry turned the screw. Seamus Downey helped himself to two points in the space of a minute, and then Tohill lobbed a 50-yard free over the bar with disheartening nonchalance. Meath never recovered.

In the end Derry won pulling away. Their players look stronger and hungrier and with every passing minute Anthony Tohill became more crucial to the proceedings. He rounded off his afternoon by dissecting the posts with a 65-yard free out of his hands. Even the racks of Meathery in the 12,000 crowd could scare forbear to cheer.

Work to be done for both sides, but time yet before they have to resort to the ersatz world of the challenge game.