Meath Goal Ensures Royal Recovery

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Meath Goal Ensures Royal Recovery

Monday, March 26 2007

Meath 1-12 Wicklow 0-12

NFL Division 2B

Meath corner-forward Stephen Bray struck for the vital second-half goal that ensured the Royals left Aughrim with the points yesterday.

Wicklow had turned in a great first half performance to lead by 0-9 to 0-4 at the break but Bray began the fightback ten minutes after the restart when he produced a good finish from a Graham Geraghty centre to level the scores.

Goalkeeper Ray Daniels went close to preventing Bray's goal, while at the other end late on Tommy Gill was denied a goal for Wicklow by the crossbar.

Wicklow had dominated the midfield in the first period through the work of Don Jackman and James Stafford, but the pattern of play changed completely in the second period as Meath took control, with Anthony Moyles and Mark Ward wresting control of the sector.

Darren Fay was also dominant in defence for Meath, Bray and Cian Ward were dangerous at corner forward and Joe Sheridan made a difference when he came on in the second half for Peter Curran.

Yet Meath found it necessary to rearrange their forces in the second half due to the stern test that Wicklow had provided, with Tommy Gill and impressive centre-forward Tony Hannon sharing eight of Wicklow's nine points.

Paul Earls was the scorer of the other point.

But then Wicklow were held scoreless by Meath for 23 minutes of the second half and at that stage the Royals had moved four points in front.

In the closing minutes of the game both teams were reduced to 14 men as Meath's Mark Ward and later Wicklow's Don Jackman were sent off for second yellow card offences.

SCORERS - Meath: S Bray 1-2, B Farrell 0-3, C Ward 0-2, G Geraghty, Joe Sheridan, Peadar Byrne, Caoimhin King, Michael Burke 0-1 each. Wicklow: T Gill 0-6, T Hannon 0-4 (3f), P Earls, J Slattery 0-1 each.

MEATH - B Murphy, B O'Reilly, D Fay, E Harrington, S McGabhann, A Moyles, A King, N Crawford, M Ward, P Curran, P Byrne, G Geraghty, S Bray, B Farrell, C Ward. Subs: J Sheridan for P Curran, N McKeigue for N Crawford, C McCarthy for C Ward, M Burke for C King.

WICKLOW - R Daniels, C Hyland, D Power, A Byrne, JP Dalton, D O hAnnaidh, L Glynn, J Stafford, D Jackman, J Slattery, T Hannon, D Fitzgerald, T Gill, D Odlum, P Earls. Sub: S Cushe for J Slattery.

REF - P Finnegan (Louth).

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