Allianz National Football League Division Two<\/p>\n
Meath 0-19 Derry 1-13<\/p>\n
By Paul Keane at Croke Park<\/p>\n
Meath have picked up in 2026 pretty much where they left off last summer, thrilling their supporters with another big Croke Park win to ignite their National League Division 2 promotion hopes.<\/p>\n
Derry were many people’s pre-League fancies for an immediate return to Division 1 following relegation last year.<\/p>\n
And when they raced into a significant early lead, it looked as if they might pick up a badly needed win – they went through all of 2025 without winning a game – with relative ease.<\/p>\n
But it was mostly downhill from there for Ciaran Meenagh whose Derry side was reeled in by a resurgent Royal County led by the excellent Jack Flynn at midfield.<\/p>\n
Flynn missed the last four games of Meath’s 2025 Championship campaign due to injury but the 2023 Tailteann Cup final man of the match returned with a bang here, reeling off seven points in total.<\/p>\n
Flynn knocked over two two-pointers as last year’s All-Ireland semi-finalists continued their habit of drilling long range scores with five two-pointers in total.<\/p>\n
Mathew Costello and Jordan Morris weighed in with important scores too while the return of James Conlon, who scored Meath’s last point, after injury was another giant bonus.<\/p>\n
Meath will travel to play Cavan next Sunday while things won’t get any easier for Derry who will host Tyrone in a Saturday evening blockbuster.<\/p>\n
Shane McGuigan led the scoring again for Derry with 0-7 while Paul Cassidy grabbed a fortuitous first-half goal for them and finished with 1-3.<\/p>\n
Derry were desperate to pick up a first win in the National League since they captured the 2024 Division 1 title by beating Dublin.<\/p>\n
Their fortunes spiralled last year but they have Gareth McKinless and Conor McCluskey back from injuries now.<\/p>\n
And with McGuigan still thriving in attack and former All-Stars Conor Glass and Brendan Rogers back together at midfield, they named a strong lineup.<\/p>\n
They dominated the first 25 minutes or so too, creating chance after chance and running up a deserved 1-5 to 0-3 lead.<\/p>\n
The goal was a disaster from Meath’s perspective as Cassidy’s point attempt dropped short and was fumbled by goalkeeper Se\u00e1n Brennan.<\/p>\n
Niall Loughlin was closing in on Brennan but the Dunderry man, one of three late additions to the Meath lineup, made a costly error as the ball squirmed out of his grasp.<\/p>\n
He excelled in two other moments though, firstly tipping over a dipping McKinless shot when Derry were putting the pressure on.<\/p>\n
Then, as Meath finally found their groove and came roaring back into the contest approaching the interval, Brennan drilled over a two-point free from downtown.<\/p>\n
Derry, leading by 1-3 to 0-1 after 17 minutes, and by five with just 10 minutes to go in the half, suddenly lost their way.<\/p>\n
Three two-pointers from Meath helped swing the game as the Royals hit 0-8 without response in total to take a surprise 0-11 to 1-5 half time lead.<\/p>\n
The Brennan two-pointer from a free came after Derry were punished for a 4\/3 breach. Soon after, McGuigan had a free that was stripped off him for taking too long as the Oak Leafers suffered a mini-meltdown.<\/p>\n
Jordan Morris piled on the misery with Meath’s fourth two-pointer after the restart, a stunning kick off the outside of his boot into the Hill 16 End.<\/p>\n
A Flynn point from a 45 then left Meath 0-14 to 1-5 clear.<\/p>\n
Derry got it going again midway through the second half with McGuigan and Cassidy both nailing two-pointers.<\/p>\n
But the closest they could get to Meath was a single point as the 2025 Leinster finalists picked off vital scores to keep themselves just out of arm’s reach.<\/p>\n
Cian McBride had a big impact when he came on, making one great fetch and then winning a free that Flynn converted for two points.<\/p>\n
Scorers for Meath: Jack Flynn 0-7 (1 tp, 1 tpf, 0-1 45), Mathew Costello 0-3 (0-1f, 1 tpf), Jordan Morris 0-3 (1 tp), Se\u00e1n Brennan 0-2 (1 tpf), Eoghan Frayne 0-1, Bryan Menton 0-1, James Conlon 0-1, Ciaran Caulfield 0-1.<\/p>\n
Scorers for Derry: Shane McGuigan 0-7 (1 tpf, 0-1f), Paul Cassidy 1-3 (1 tp), Gareth McKinless 0-1, Ethan Doherty 0-1, Matthew Downey 0-1.<\/p>\n
\u200bDerry: Shea McGuckin; Diarmuid Baker, Conor Doherty, Ruair\u00ed Forbes; Padraig McGrogan, Gareth McKinless, Conor McCluskey; Conor Glass, Brendan Rogers; Ethan Dogherty, Shane McGuigan, Niall Loughlin; Paul Cassidy, Niall Toner, Conor McAteer.<\/p>\n
Subs: Cian McBride for Duke 49, James Conlon (0-01) for O’Neill 53, Jack O’Connor for Frayne 61, Jason Scully for Kinsella 65, Ronan Ryan for O’Halloran 68.<\/p>\n
Meath: Se\u00e1n Brennan; Seamus Lavin, Se\u00e1n Rafferty, Brian O’Halloran; Donal Keogan, Ciar\u00e1n Caulfield, Adam O’Neill; Bryan Menton, Jack Flynn; Conor Duke, Ruairi Kinsella, Se\u00e1n Coffey; Jordan Morris, Eoghan Frayne, Mathew Costello.<\/p>\n
Subs: Matthew Downey for McAteer 43, Shea Downey for Toner 54, Patrick McGurk for Loughlin 61, Sean Kearney for Baker 65, Sean Young for Cassidy 70.<\/p>\n
Referee: Barry Tiernan (Dublin).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allianz National Football League Division Two Meath 0-19 Derry 1-13 By Paul Keane at Croke Park Meath have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-262868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}