Meath stroll into quarter-final with easy win over Offaly

Meath 1-20 Offaly 2-7

The sending off of Offaly midfielder John Coughlan three minutes into the second half signalled an early end to the Offaly challenge as Meath sauntered through to a quarter-final showdown with Laois at Croke Park in two weeks time.

Coughlan received his marching orders for injudicious use of an elbow and, with Offaly already struggling in the middle third, their hopes disappeared entirely.

Meath had dominated the opening period, but those familiar defensive frailties saw them concede two goals to keep the Faithful men in touch at the break, just two points in arrears on 0-11 to 2-3.

In truth, they could well have been ahead but for some terrible shooting. Niall Darby in particular, had a day to forget from placed balls, missing three from around the 20m line and central.

He also shot wide from a good position in the second half and was replaced soon after.

His fortunes were in direct contrast to those of the deadly accurate Cian Ward. The Wolfe Tones sharpshooter finished with eight points from Meath, and seven of those were from frees taken both off the ground and from the hand.

Many of his kicks were from distance and his crisp strike off the ground from 50m at the three-quarter mark was a wonderful effort.

By that stage, Meath were in cruise control and Shane O’Rourke got into the act with another excellent effort from outside the 45.

In all, Ward and O’Rourke contributed a total of 12 points between them, with O’Rourke’s four from play very useful indeed, although he might have put Stephen Bray through for a goal with one of his two second half scores.

Joe Sheridan wasn’t as noticeable after the resumption as in the first half, when he terrorised the Offaly defence with three points and an all-round rampaging display.

He did, however, pop up for Meath’s 67th minute goal, finishing from close range having wasted a good opportunity just moments earlier.

The Royals were brilliant at times in the opening term but their brittleness and Niall McNamee’s savvy yielded two goals for Offaly, even though it’s hard to remember any period of dominance Tom Cribbin’s men had.

Five points in the space of 10 minutes pushed the winners five clear before Brian Connor’s clever run was spotted brilliant by McNamee in the 22nd minute. His left-fisted pass found the Walsh Island man running into space and the centre-forward drove powerfully to the net.

Again Meath drove on, this time with three points, including a punched effort by wing-back Gary O’Brien.

But again Offaly struck for a goal, McNamee doing brilliantly to keep a long ball in play and then transferring to John Reynolds, who couldn’t miss.

Once they were at a numerical disadvantage though, Offaly were cooked and they never looked like raising a gallop from then on.

Meath: P O’Rourke; C O’Connor, A Moyles, E Harrington; G O’Brien 0-1, M Burke, C King; N Crawford 0-1, M Ward; S Kenny, J Sheridan 1-3, G Reilly; C Ward 0-8(7s), S O’Rourke 0-4, S Bray 0-2. Subs: B Farrell 0-1(f) for C Ward (64); C Gillespie for M Ward (64); B Meade for S O’Rourke (65)

Offaly: A Mulhall; C Kiely, S Brady, P Sullivan; S Sullivan, R Dalton, K Slattery; C McManus, J Coughlan; N Darby 0-2(fs), B Connor 1-0, S Ryan; K Casey 0-2(1f), J Reynolds 1-1, N McNamee 0-1. Subs: A Sullivan 0-1 for Darby (46); A Lynam for Ryan (49); B Geraghty for McManus (60); R Brady for Connor (61)

Referee: D Fahy (Longford)