NFL DIVISION TWO Meath 2-8 Armagh 0-13:SATURDAY NIGHT in Navan or another step along the path to rehabilitation. The passions which drive the bloods in Meath and Armagh are such that patience is short when it comes to the business of transition and both houses have found it difficult replacing iconic managers.
In the end a cigarette paper-thin margin of a point divided the two sides and neither came away with a clear verdict as to when the good times would return. Meath would have marginally more reasons to be cheerful though.
Their first-half performance easily shaded the second, especially at midfield where they seemed to fade. When the going was good for Meath, Nigel Crawford and Mark Ward at least broke even with their counterparts. Jamie Queeney’s continuing evolution into a full forward of quality adds more variety to a deck which they sometimes must wish was more loaded with defenders.
On Saturday there were smooth cameos from Queeney who got his side’s second goal and from the Bray brothers the elder of whom, Stephen, scored Meath’s first goal and the younger of whom, David, pointed the free which finally won the game.
More splintery was the performance of a defence which was under pressure for quite some time and a midfield which had a tendency to vanish between periods of industriousness. The search for a full back seemed to have diminished in urgency after the O’Byrne Cup campaign but on Saturday night James Macken had a tough time of things and had to be hauled ashore early.
Armagh came away feeling a little sorry for themselves no doubt. There second-half performance merited a share of the spoils and generally, after a stuttering opening 10 minutes, when they were good they were very good.
They were four points down in 10 minutes following Bray’s goal and if they had only whittled a point off that by half-time they had created enough chances, and duly squandered them, to have been in the lead.
They were duly punished in the second half when Queeney took a long ball from the throw-in and fired to the net. Meath were six points up and cruising, unaware that they wouldn’t score from play again.
Armagh pressed hard in the final quarter, popping over a run of scores which brought them level but had to watch and learn as David Bray hit a late free for Meath to shift the target yet again.
“Sure it was a great game to watch,” said Paddy O’Rourke of Armagh. “Disappointed we didn’t get more out of it. We want to be a positive team. For players to go out and have a go like they did tonight. I think we will get results. We learned a lot tonight.”
O’Rourke’s counterpart Eamonn O’Brien was more pleased.
“We dug very deep and defended well after the great start in the second half. They came back very well and were winning a lot of good possession around midfield, they really put it up to us.
“Going long periods without scoring is something we need to look at but I’m very pleased with the work-rate of the players. It would have been very disappointing to get nothing from the game.”
MEATH: P O'Rourke; N McKeigue, J Macken, E Harrington; M Burke, C McGuinness, G Reilly (0-1); N Crawford, M Ward; C O'Connor (0-1), S Bray (1-1), P Byrne; D Bray (0-3, 2 frees), J Queeney (1-1), C Ward (0-1, free). Subs: S Kenny for Macken (31 mins), O Lewis for Byrne (49 mins), A Moyles for C Ward (58 mins), B Sheridan for S Bray (69).
ARMAGH: P Hearty; A Mallon, B Donaghy, P Duffy; A Kernan (0-1, free), C McKeever, F Moriarty (0-1); J Lavery, K Toner; J Feeney (0-1), C Vernon (0-2), M Mackin; R Henderson (0-2), G Swift, S McDonnell (0-6, two frees). Subs: P Kernan for Swift (46 mins), T Kernan for Henderson (53 mins), M McNamee for Mackin (64 mins).
Referee: G Ó Conamha(Galway).
