The visitors introduced three substitutes for the second-half and there was an immediate change of fortune as Raftery curled over his second point within a minute of the restart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Whitehall Colmcille player added a two-pointer three minutes later as Westmeath\u2019s lead was trimmed to four points but the hosts regained\u00a0control of matters through a trio of unanswered points by Murray, Tom Weir and Conor Cleary.<\/p>\n
Trailing by Double scores, Dublin were in need of some inspiration at this stage and it duly arrived through the familiar figure of Raftery, who left Tom McCaul helpless in the\u00a0Westmeath goal with an arrowed shot into the bottom corner following an incision from deep by Bobby Doyle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Andy McDonnell looked busy when introduced and kicked a deserved point at the start of the final quarter before Raftery edged the visitors in front by the 50th\u00a0minute as he kicked a brace of sumptuous two-pointers in quick succession.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crucially, the momentum swung back in Westmeath\u2019s favour in the closing stages as a Connaire point preceded a fine solo goal from Kelly, who raced clear before placing an emphatic finish across Jamie Galvin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kelly added a point in the 59th\u00a0minute and while Dublin placed some late pressure on the home goal, it failed to generate\u00a0the required\u00a0scores to spare them their fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dublin will conclude their group stage when travelling to Longford on Tuesday, 14th\u00a0April.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scorers \u2013 Dublin:\u00a0C Raftery 1-8 (1 F2, 2\u00a0P2); J McCaghy, J Heavey (f), C O\u2019Dwyer, A McDonnell 0-1 apiece.\u00a0Westmeath:\u00a0D Kelly 1-2; S McWade 0-5 (1f, 1 P2); D Murray 0-4 (1 P2); A Connaire 0-2; A Mullen Adamson, T Weir, C Clancy 0-1 apiece.<\/p>\n
Dublin:\u00a0J Galvin; D Lombard, A Becton, F Carroll; C Doran, J McCaghy, B Doyle;\u00a0C O\u2019Carroll, C Raftery; E Brangan, M Salami, C Reilly; E Madden, J Heavey, C O\u2019Dwyer. Subs:\u00a0A McDonnell for\u00a0Reilly\u00a0(half-time), M Morrison for Brangan (half-time), A Davis for Carroll (half-time),\u00a0C Wilde for Salami (64).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Westmeath:\u00a0T McCaul; T Wier, T Brennan, L Dillon;\u00a0G Staunton, E Daly,\u00a0C McKeogh;\u00a0M Monaghan, B Stenson; D Kelly, D Murray, C Cleary; S McWade, A Connaire, A Mullen Adamson. Subs:\u00a0F Brennan for Monaghan (43),\u00a0H Hughes for Mullen Adamson (52),\u00a0J Murtagh for McKeogh (56), R Brady for Weir (61).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Referee:\u00a0Colum McCullough (Louth).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The visitors introduced three substitutes for the second-half and there was an immediate change of fortune as Raftery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-375906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375906","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=375906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}