Meath 2-11 Dublin 0-14

John McDermott’s toe had healed sufficiently to allow him make his long awaited return in the Leinster final and it couldn’t have been timed more appropriately as Meath met old foes Dublin, who under Tommy Carr, were desperate for a first Leinster title since 1995.

But yet again Dublin’s lack of scoring power came back to haunt them with veteran Dessie Farrell the only attacker in the sky blue to pose any problems for the Meath rearguard.

Jason Sherlock did have a chance to lay down an early marker when he found himself with a good scoring chance in the 2nd minute but he blazed wide of Cormac Sullivan’s post.

As if purposely to rub salt into the Dublin wounds, Graham Geraghty scored arguably the simplest goal he will ever score in a Meath jersey just three minutes later when the Dub’s goalie Davy Byrne made an uncharacteristic fumble from a speculative Ollie Murphy lob.

Dublin, to their credit, continued to grafting were just two points in arrears (1-9 to 0-10), entering the final quarter but Meath’s lead and subsequent win, was copper fastened in the 56th minute when Richie Kealy latched on to a Nigel Nestor handpass to steer the ball past Byrne for the Royal County’s second goal.

It was a harsh lesson in economy for the Dubs, who enjoyed far more possession than Meath but where unable to translate it into scores. As a result Sean Boylan’s charges bagged the county’s 20th provincial title.

Afterwards, Meath’s talisman Trevor Giles summed up the game in a nutshell. “Only for a few chances they missed it could have gone the other way. It felt like they had all the possession, I don’t think any team put us under as much pressure. We were living off crumbs so we just had to take any chances we had.”

An interesting sub-plot in the build up to the Leinster final was the anticipated arrival of Vinny Murphy onto the field. Sure enough when the time arrived in the 52nd minute, the Hill 16 faithful cheered their folk hero while Meath fans were curious to see if he’d repeat the shenanigans which earned him a yellow card on his introduction in the Leinster semi final against Offaly. Sensibly, Vinny chose not to ruffle any of Darren Fay’s feathers.

Meath: Cormac Sullivan, Mark O’Reilly, Darren Fay, Cormac Murphy, Nigel Nestor, Hank Traynor, Paul Shankey, Nigel Crawford, John McDermott, Evan Kelly 0-3, Trevor Giles 0-3, Richie Kealy 1-1, Ollie Murphy 0-1, Graham Geraghty 1-0, Donal Curtis 0-2. Sub: Ray Magee 0-1

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