Easy for Navan as minnows flounder

DIFFERENT sport, different day, but this was depressingly reminiscent of Ireland’s facile defeat of Canada in Thomond Park on Saturday with one side doing what they wanted, when they wanted against an inferior opponent.

The omens weren’t good in the days leading up to the fixture when the Castledaly chairman was quoted in one of the Westmeath papers questioning the mental focus of his club’s players.

The reasoning behind his doubts was understandable. Castledaly claimed their first county title this season and the village of a few hundred houses celebrated the achievement in fitting style.

With centre-back Derek Heavin the only name on their panel to have made the radar of the inter-county game, this was always going to be a difficult assignment against a Navan side bloated with seven Meath squad members.

Any post-mortem on their performance here has to be framed by the limitations of their opponents but O’Mahonys did enough to suggest they could make life tough for championship favourites Kilmacud Crokes in the semi-final.

Slick attacking moves were the order of the day and, with a defence bolted tight by Kevin Reilly and Cormac McGuinness, as well as a midfield dominated by Mark Ward, their potential is obvious.

Manager Sean Kelly has attempted to play down their provincial ambitions by noting this is the club’s first Leinster campaign in 17 years but St Vincent’s made light of a far longer absence by taking All-Ireland honours last March.

Meath could certainly do with increasing their market share in this competition. Only Dunshaughlin in 2002 have been able to bring the Leinster title back to the county in the last 25 years.

As they look ahead to the next round on November 23rd, the main concern for Kelly after this cakewalk will be the lack of serious competition his side has encountered since defeating Summerhill in the county final.

Wexford champions Killanerin gave them a walkover in the preliminary round having won their own county championship just 24 hours prior to their scheduled opening provincial fixture. And now this.

The Dublin champions have been pressed far harder. Pushed to the pin of their collar against Louth’s Newtown Blues yesterday, they endured a taxing path to their own county title before accounting for Kildare’s Celbridge last week.

None of those permutations meant much in Navan at 2.30pm yesterday, of course, but minds were given ample room to wander soon after the throw-in with the home side cantering to an early lead.

Though playing against the wind in the first-half, Navan scored half a dozen unanswered points before Castledaly centre-forward Michael Duffy opened the visitors’ account with a free after 18 minutes.

Their first attack worthy of the name hadn’t arrived until two minutes prior to that, which wasn’t surprising given the fact that O’Mahonys had won every breaking ball around the middle third up to that point.

The Westmeath side’s opening score was, at least, the cue for their best spell. Had goalkeeper Marcus Brennan not swatted away an MJ McLoughlin shot after 27 minutes, only two points would have separated the sides for all Navan’s dominance.

The scare served to wake up O’Mahonys who had, understandably, taken the foot off the pedal after the ease with which they had built up an early lead. Having spurned two earlier goal chances, they took a third right before the interval.

It came courtesy of Reilly, who had returned from International Rules duty in Australia only a few days earlier. A quick free set the full-back off in space allowing him to finish low under goalkeeper James Kinihan.

Leading by eight points at the turn of ends, Navan rattled off four more points in the next five minutes. Castledaly’s only score of the second period arrived with eight minutes to go. The game finished in near darkness as ominous storm clouds descended but the lights had gone out on Castledaly long before that.

Brighter days may yet await their conquerors.

Scorers for Navan: D Bray 0-6 (2f), H Finnegan 0-4 (1f), K Reilly 1-0, M Ward 0-2, S Keating 0-2, S McKeigue 0-1, C McGuinness 0-1, S Bray 0-1.

Scorers for Castledaly: MMcLoughlin 0-2f, M Duffy 0-1, B Kelly 0-1.

NAVAN: M Brennan; D Moran, K Reilly, N McKeigue; S O’Toole, C McGuinness, S MacGabhann; M Ward, B Regan; P Smith, S Bray, H Finnegan; D Bray, S McKeigue, S Keating.

Subs: I Matthews for N McKeigue 43, N Dunne for Regan 48, G O’Brien for Smith 49, D Hoise for S McKeigue 51, S Crosbie for McGuinness 54.

CASTLEDALY: J Kinihan; M Gavin, N O’ Neill, C Henson; E Kelly, D Heavin, S Kavanagh; G Duffy, N Duffy; A Fitzgerald, MJ McLoughlin, P Kelly; M Duffy, J Galvin, B Kelly.

Subs: A Kelly for Kavanagh 26, R Casey for Fitzgerald 30, S Kavanagh for Henson 40, T Warburton for O’Neill 40, A Kelly for M Duffy 51.

Referee: M Deegan (Laois).