Cian O’Neill was cursing his luck after Kildare lost three players to injury in their last-gasp defeat to Meath.

Forward Ben McCormack was forced off after 23 minutes, while Eoin Doyle and Mark Donnellan also retired injured in the second half as the Lilywhites' promotion hopes were dented by an injury-time penalty in Navan.

"Circumstances were really against us today. We lost Ben McCormack very early on, and he was tearing it up," the Kildare manager explained to RTE.

"Then our captain Eoin Doyle went off early and then rarely you see it but our goalkeeper Mark Donnellan went off with concussion. So all of a sudden, it’s not just that you’ve lost three players from your starting 15, you’ve also had to bring on three subs."

O’Neill was critical of the rule change which restricts teams to five substitutions rather than six.

"I don’t see the logic in changing the six back to five. The way the game has gone; the speed, the intensity, the work-rate in it. You need all the subs you can get and that cost us today," he added.

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