No cup joy for Royals

The chance for Meath manager Mick O’Dowd and his team to win some early-season silverware ended in disappointment when they lost 0-9 to 1-10 to Kildare in the O'Byrne Cup final at Newbridge today. 

The Royal County side played only in fits and starts and were unable to find the find of fluency required to get the better of Jason Ryan’s Lilywhites.

At no stage did Meath lead and they knew they were facing a major uphill task at the interval when they trailed 0-6 to 1-4.

Before an attendance of 2,752 Meath struggled to get into this game and they shipped an early blow when Tommy Moolick waltzed through the defence in the opening minutes to fire past Conor McHugh.

Podge Fogarty added a point soon after before Stephen Bray and Eamon Wallace slotted over to help settle the visitors.

Worryingly for the Meath management Conor Gillespie limped off in the opening half and was replaced by Kevin Reilly.

Michael Newman went close to finding the net in the opening half while soon after the break Davy Dalton forced an excellent save from Kildare netminder Mark Donnellan.

Newman split the posts from a free to to leave Meath 0-8 to 1-8 behind with 15 minutes to go while Andrew Tormey was harshly shown a black card for a foul and made the long walk.

Damien Carroll had an excellent chance for Meath in the closing stages but he shot wide. With Paul Cribbin in excellent form for Kildare it was they who held on to win.

Jimmy Geoghegan