U20s beaten by strong Meath outfit
Carlow under 20 captain Daniel Bolger scores a first half goal for Carlow despite the best efforts of Meath's Shane Callaghan Photo: Pat Ahern
It was a tough night for the home side at Netwatch Cullen Park on Wednesday evening as an ambitious looking Meath side proved far too good in this group 2 game of the Leinster U20 Football Championship.
Meath got off to a perfect start with Cian Commons slotting a two-pointer from play and the Royals followed this up with three more points. Mark Buggy got Carlow off the mark with a point but against the wind into the scoreboard end they were making hard work of it when trying to create further chances.
For the visitors, Michael McIvor and Ben Corkery also nailed two two-pointers with the first Meath goal coming on 16 minutes when Commons fielded cleanly in front of the Carlow posts before slotting home. John Harkin added a second a minute later and Carlow were facing a rout.
Two minutes before half-time, Daniel Bolger collected in the big square and wrong-footing the Meath defence the Carlow corner forward found the bottom right hand corner of the net. The home side struck again when, in the final attack of the half, Jake Nolan scored another goal to leave Meath leading 2-11 to 2-4 at the break.
On the resumption, the visitors repeated their first half opening when filleting the Carlow defence to score 1-2 before Nolan raised a white flag for the home side.
In reply, Harkin scored three points in a five minutes spell and with six minutes to go, substitute, Adam Ducie ran at the Carlow defence for another three-pointer. The same player scored a second goal which all but completed Carlow’s misery on a difficult night for the home side.
John Harkin 2-5 (2fs), A Ducie 2-0, C Commons 1-3 (1-2p), S Cahill 0-4, B Corkery 0-3 (1-2p), M McIvor 0-2 (1-2p), C O’Donohue 0-1, C Smith 0-1.
J Nolan 1-5, D Bolger 1-0, M Buggy 0-4 (2fs).
Finn Moore; Cillian Yore, Sam Jordan, Shane Callaghan; Cormac Smith, Colin Scanlon, Kyle O’Brien; Michael McIvor, Paul Hennessy; Eoin McCrudden, John Harkin, Stephen Cahill; Ben Corkery, Cian Commons, Cormac O’Donoghue. Subs: Adam Ducie for O’Donohoe (43), John Gormley for Scanlon (45), Conor McEntee for McCrudden (45), Sean Delaney for Commons (55), Sean Betson for O’Brien (55).
Conal McGuire; Sean Walsh, Ross Moran, Daire Byrne; Ryan Donnelly-Finn, Eoin Myers, Rory McCaffrey; Ben Curry, Callum Crawford; Daniel Bolger, Jake Nolan, Fiach Byrne; Jamie Coakley, Ian Craddock, Mark Buggy. Subs: Marc Mulhall for Craddock (45), Brian Maher for Donnelly-Finn (45), Lorcan O’Connor for Byrne (52), Joe Curran for Coakley (52), Eoin Ryan for Buggy (56).
Stephen Fagan (Wicklow).
