Westmeath suffer only slip-up as pitch battles fail to materialise at HQ

THERE didn’t seem to be grounds (sorry) for concern about the state of the Croke Park pitch on Saturday, when Dublin met Westmeath in a one-sided All-Ireland SFC quarter-final.

With a dry day, the chances of repeating the previous weekend’s icecapades seemed slim, and so it proved. There didn’t seem to be much cause for concern, in fact, until the 13th minute, when Westmeath corner back Francis Boyle moved out to cover Tomas Quinn, who was gathering a rebound. Unfortunately for Boyle, his feet went from under him and Quinn stepped through to score the game’s only goal and sent the Dubs through to the All-Ireland semi-final.

Hard to say whether the underfoot conditions were to blame for the Dublin goal, though you could imagine some of the Cork and Waterford hurlers nodding in sympathy if they were watching on television: the Westmeath defender seemed to hit the deck suddenly enough to suggest he’d tried and failed to hold his ground.