Simonstown edged out in Mullingar
Simonstown exited the Leinster Club SFC at the semi-final stage when they lost by two points (1-8 to 0-13) against St Loman's, Mullingar today.
St Loman's had to start without David Whelan who missed out through injury and he was replaced by Ciaran Kilmurray.
Simonstown made a positive start, but St Loman's squandered a couple of early goal chances as they trailed to points from Padraig McKeever and Nathan O'Brien.
For St Loman's those goal chances were missed by Ronan O'Toole, after hesitancy by Robbie Burlingham, and Ciaran Kilmurray.
Simonstown punished those lapses when Mark McCabe rifled to the St Loman's net in the 11th minute and that was followed by a point apiece from Brian Conlon and McKeever for an impressive 1-4 to 0-0 first-quarter lead.
St Loman's then got into the game with points from Paul Sharry, Ken Casey, John Heslin (free) and Shane Dempsey as both teams adapted well to the difficult underfoot conditions and the incessant rain.
Simonstown ended a 12-minute barren spell on the scoreboard with points from O'Brien and Sean Tobin, but they were countered by a brace (one free) from Heslin ahead of the interval and that left St Loman's adrift by 0-6 to 1-6 at the interval.
St Loman's lost Sean Flanagan to an early second-half black card, but got back on terms by the end of the third-quarter with a brace of pointed Heslin frees and one from Dempsey.
The Westmeath men added four points in tense clsoing quarter and that was sufficient to eclipse a brace from Simonstown late in the game by Conor Sheridan and Shane O'Rourke.