\u200bNational Football League, Division 2, Round 6<\/p>\n
Meath 3-24 Tyrone 2-22<\/p>\n
By Paul Keane at Croke Park<\/p>\n
Meath are on the cusp of a return to Division 1 of the National Football League after yet another dramatic Croke Park win.<\/p>\n
GAA HQ has been a happy hunting ground this season for Robbie Brennan’s side who, after wins over Derry and Louth there, added Tyrone to their high profile list of Division 2 victims.<\/p>\n
And true to a rollercoaster campaign for the Royals, they achieved their fifth win of the campaign in thrilling fashion.<\/p>\n
Trailing by five points early on, they battled back thanks in the main to Jack O’Connor, who scored 1-8 and was Man of the Match, opening up a 12-point lead at one stage in the second half before seeing it cut down to just two late on.<\/p>\n
Meath held on for the win though to join Cork at the head of the table on 10 points, ahead of their final round trip to rock bottom Offaly.<\/p>\n
Aaron Lynch impressed too with 2-1 while 0-9 split between Ruair\u00ed Kinsella and captain Eoghan Frayne, all from play, went a long way towards seeing off a battling Tyrone who brought on Darragh Canavan after his planned travel break was cancelled.<\/p>\n
Ethan Jordan was terrific again for Tyrone and struck 1-9 in all but they couldn’t rescue a result despite a strong final quarter.<\/p>\n
O’Connor’s first start of the campaign for Meath was against Kildare in Round 5 and a positive showing in Newbridge, 0-4 from play, ensured he retained the number 10 jersey.<\/p>\n
He didn’t actually score this time until the 17th minute, at which stage Meath were crying out for some inspiration as Tyrone led by 1-6 to 1-1.<\/p>\n
It was the Jordan show up to that point. The Eglish man burst onto the inter-county senior scene with 1-9 for Tyrone on his debut against Kildare in Round 1.<\/p>\n
The former Red Hands minor star took this game by the scruff of the neck initially, knocking over no less than four 45s in the opening 12 minutes.<\/p>\n
Two of those he also engineered himself while the former soccer player then burst onto a Mattie Donnelly pass and struck a brilliant 13th minute goal.<\/p>\n
Meath goalkeeper Se\u00e1n Brennan pulled off excellent saves from Ronan Cassidy and Jordan in the opening 11 minutes.<\/p>\n
But Brennan had no chance for the Jordan goal as the ball flew across him to the far top corner.<\/p>\n
Tyrone’s big lead didn’t last long though and now it was time for O’Connor to grab the spotlight, racking up an astonishing 1-8 between the 17th and 31st minutes.<\/p>\n
Four times in the second quarter the speedy Curraha man, who missed last year due to travel, booted two-pointers from almost the exact same spot on the right wing.<\/p>\n
Then he darted through an opening in the same area and kept going until the goal came into view, allowing him to slip a low shot past Ois\u00edn O’Kane who was deputising for Niall Morgan.<\/p>\n
Tyrone boss Malachy O’Rourke responded by replacing Michael Rafferty and bringing on Michael McKernan to mark O’Connor.<\/p>\n
But to be fair to the Tyrone defence, Meath created the space well for O’Connor with Donal Keogan cleverly acting as shield for one of O’Connor’s two-pointers. For the goal, Jordan Morris helped drag Tyrone defender Cormac Quinn just out of position to create the opening.<\/p>\n
Morris didn’t score in the first half but set up Meath’s opening goal, as early as the third minute, with a sumptuous kick-pass off his weaker right foot, feigning to shoot before playing in Lynch.<\/p>\n
Darren McCurry made an impact from the Tyrone bench with two points before the break but Meath still led 2-12 to 1-11 at the interval.<\/p>\n
Lynch had the ball in the net again for Meath but it came just after the buzzer so didn’t count.<\/p>\n
But there was no issues with his 41st minute goal when Meath won a Tyrone kick out and fed him with a long, early kick pass. Lynch still had plenty to do but stuck it perfectly in the far corner.<\/p>\n
Kinsella then kicked into overdrive as the Royals turned the screw, the Dunshaughlin man blasting back-to-back two-pointers to stretch the gap to 3-19 to 1-13.<\/p>\n
Tyrone played their Canavan card and unloaded talisman forward Darragh from the bench in the 43rd minute after cancelling his plans.<\/p>\n
He was immediately busy and his arrival corresponded with another purple patch as Tyrone reeled off 1-7 without response.<\/p>\n
Two-pointers from Jordan and Darragh Canavan, along with a fortunate Niall Devlin goal, when he swept up after Peter Teague’s point attempt rebounded off the post, ate into Meath’s lead.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Meath’s 12-point advantage was down to just two and while the hosts got it out to four again, Jordan’s second two-pointer in the 67th minute reduced it back to two at 3-21 to 2-22.<\/p>\n
McCurry’s 66th minute black card, and a Tyrone breach which allowed Meath goalkeeper Brennan to convert a last-gasp two-point free, all played into the Leinster side’s hands in the closing stages as they held on.<\/p>\n
Meath scorers: Jack O’Connor 1-8 (4 tp), Aaron Lynch 2-1, Ruair\u00ed Kisella 0-5 (2 tp), Eoghan Frayne 0-4 (1 tp), Se\u00e1n Brennan 0-2 (tpf), Jordan Morris 0-1 (0-1f), Se\u00e1n Coffey 0-1, Ciar\u00e1n Caulfield 0-1, Bryan Menton 0-1.<\/p>\n
Tyrone scorers: Ethan Jordan 1-9 (4 45, 2 tp, 1f), Niall Devlin 1-0, Darren McCurry 0-4 (0-2f), Darragh Canaavan 0-2 (1 tp), Ruair\u00ed Canavan 0-2, Ronan Cassidy 0-2, Mattie Donnelly 0-1, Se\u00e1nie O’Donnell 0-1, Joey Clarke 0-1.<\/p>\n
Meath: Se\u00e1n Brennan; Se\u00e1n Rafferty, Seamus Lavin, Brian O’Halloran; Donal Keogan, Se\u00e1n Coffey, Ciar\u00e1n Caulfield; Bryan Menton, Jack Flynn; Jack O’Connor, Ruair\u00ed Kinsella, Adam O’Neill; Jordan Morris, Eoghan Frayne, Aaron Lynch.<\/p>\n
Subs: Charlie O’Connor for O’Neill 51, Cathal Hickey for Jack O’Connor 54, Keith Curtis for Lynch 54, James Conlon for Frayne 58, Jason Scully for Flynn 68.<\/p>\n
Tyrone: Ois\u00edn O’Kane; Aidan Clarke, Peter Teague, Cormac Quinn; Joey Clarke, Niall Devlin, Michael Rafferty; Brian Kennedy, Conn Kilpatrick; Se\u00e1nie O’Donnell, Ronan Cassidy, Ciar\u00e1n Daly; Ruair\u00ed Canavan, Mattie Donnelly, Ethan Jordan.<\/p>\n
Subs: Darren McCurry for Ruair\u00ed Canavan 28, Michael McKernan for Rafferty 32, Darragh Canavan for Daly 43, Eoin McElholm for Cassidy 59, Frank Burns for Clarke 64.<\/p>\n
Referee: Niall Cullen (Fermanagh).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bNational Football League, Division 2, Round 6 Meath 3-24 Tyrone 2-22 By Paul Keane at Croke Park Meath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-347160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347160","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=347160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}