Royals blown away in Ardagh

Meath were blown away this afternoon by Roscommon in the final of the Hastings Cup u-21 FT at Kenagh where the Connacht side produced an excellent performance against the second-half gale after leading by 0-10 to 1-1 at the interval.

The smart money would have been on Meath for the second-half as the Royals were only six points adrift after defending valiantly against the gale that blew straight down the pitch from the road end.

(See short video of an early second-half Meath attack that produced a Joey Wallace point - the howling wind is not exaggerated on the sound with the clip).

Barry Dardis scored 1-1 for Meath in the opening half and at the end of the first-quarter it was level pegging (1-1 to 0-4) as Roscommon laboured to make any sort of impact.

Roscommon eventually started to pick off the points and added six more before the break.

However, Roscommon supporters were still apprehensive as the second-half started, but in an amazing 30 minutes the westerners out-scored wind-assisted Meath by 0-3 to 0-2 for a thoroughly merited victory.

Meath manager Sean Barry was disappointed with the outcome and suggested that Roscommon adapted better for the second-half.

The Meath manager was pleased with the boost that the tournament has provided for the u-21 Leinster FC preparations.

Meath will play Louth in the Leinster u-21 FC at the beginning of March.

There are a number players on the senior Meath panel that will be brought into the u-21 panel after the first two rounds of the NFL and the u-21 selectors will also have to cut their panel over the next few weeks.

A number of challenge games are scheduled also.

Conall Collier