Comfortable Dublin beat Meath: report

Dublin 1-24, Meath 2-12

Kevin Flynn was the player on song as he steered Dublin to a comfortable nine point victory over a battling Meath in their Guinness Leinster senior hurling championship preliminary group final game at O’Connor Park, Tullamore, yesterday.

The nippy Dublin attacker showed a tremendous display of accuracy finishing the game with a personal tally of 0-11, the type of clinical finishing which the Royal County side could not match.

Dublin opened impressively moving into a 0-10 to 0-5 lead inside 20 minutes of the start with Flynn contributing five of the points.

With Dublin still leading 0-12 to 0-5, Meath showed the type of resolve which one comes to expect from the side with two goals in the space of a minute.

The first goal after 25 minutes was a rather fortunate affair with Nicky Horan’s low shot across goal taking a wicked deflection off a defender to finish in the net.

One minute later there was no doubting Horan’s effort as his 25-metre drive flashed to the roof of the net.

However it was Flynn who stabilised the Dubs challenge with two further points before the break with wing-back Kevin Ryan also getting in on the scoring which left the eventual winners with a 0-16 to 2-5 interval lead.

The second 35 minutes was a very even affair with the sides continuing to exchange points.

Dublin through the accuracy of Flynn and Shane Martin maintained their grip on proceedings, as Meath's only response was points from Nickey Horan and Dan Dorran.

With the Dubs cruising to a semi-final clash with Wexford they put the issue beyond doubt two minutes into injury time when Darragh Spain shot to an empty net after the Meath goalie Mark Gannon was caught out of position after a short clearance.

Dublin: B. McLoughlin, P. Brennan, S. Perkins, D. O’Reilly (0-1), S. Hiney, L. Ryan, K. Ryan (0-1), D. Sweeney (0-1), C. Meehan, K. Flynn (0-11), C. Keaney (0-3), S. Martin (0-3), D. Donnelly, D. Spain (1-1), T. McGrane (0-1). Subs: P. O’Donoghue (0-1) for McGrane; T. Moore for Donnelly; C. Wilson for Sweeney.

Meath: M. Gannon, P. Gannon, P. Donnelly, G. Kennedy, C. Keena, D. Murray, K. Down, C. Cheridan (0-2), D. Callaghan, F. McMahon, D. Dorran (0-1), M. Cole, J. Toole (0-2), N.Horan (2-5). E. Lynam (0-2). Subs: A. O’Neill for Kennedy; N. Reilly for Lynam.