Meath cantered past Louth in this O'Byrne Cup quarter-final at Navan (0-11 to 0-5).

Centre forward Graham Reilly hit five of the winners' scores as the visiting Wee County never quite raised a meaningful challenge.

The Royals had the benefit of a fist-round tie against Wexford at this venue last weekend, while Peter Fitzpatrick's charges had no match due to the withdrawal of Kilkenny from the early-season competition. This showed as Louth looked the rustier of the teams.

Meath led by 0-5 to 0-1 at the break. Centre forward Reilly fired the first point of this derby game after five minutes and Paddy Gilsenan and the superb Reilly added an over apiece before the former had a 19th-minute goal effort well saved by Duane Crosby, making his debut between the posts for the visitors.

St Fechins clubman Ronan Holcroft scored the Wee County's only first-half point but Stephen Bray and Gilsenan tagged on further Royal County scores before the end of a poor opening period.

Experienced trio Mark Brennan, Darren Clarke and Gerard Hoey all came on for the visitors at half time and Louth improved as a result of the changes.

Clarke hit the crossbar and the travelling supporters knew it wasn't going to be their day when Crilly could only find the post from the rebound.

Reilly struck his third point from play and a Mickey Burke point made it 0-9 to 0-2.

Player-selector Graham Geraghty came off the bench for the home side, sparking the biggest cheer of the day. At the time it was 0-10 to 0-3 to Banty's charges. Sub Ronan Carroll notched the Reds' third point.

Geraghty set up Bray for the winners' last score, his third of the game. Chris O'Connor was also on target for the home team in the second half.

Meath will take on DCU in the last four, with the winners of that one going on to play either Dublin or Kildare in the decider. Tweet

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