Senior Hurlers Well Beaten By Meath

Saturday 11.03.2023

County

Tyrone senior hurlers hosted top of the table Meath at O’Neills Healy Park on Saturday but found the Royals too hot to handle as the Leinster side eased to a 2-17 to 0-8 win.

Meath began in dominant form and wind assisted in the first half they outscored Tyrone by ten points 0-15 to 0-5. The second half saw an improved Tyrone display but Meath were never in trouble and two late second half goals sealed a very convincing win.

Wing back Simon Ennis opened the scoring for Meath with a fine point inside the first minute before Dermot Begley converted a long distance free. Stephen Morris made it 0-2 to 0-1 for the visitors but Tyrone full forward Lorcan Devlin sent over an excellent score to tie the game after six minutes at two points apiece.

One minute later Begley converted his second point of the game and with seven minutes on the clock Tyrone led 0-3 to 0-2. Unfortunately for Tyrone Meath hit a real purple patch with six unanswered points. Stephen Morris began the run with Ennis, Padraig O Hanrahan and Sean Quigley all on target for the Royals.

A fine strike from Sean Duffin after twenty two minutes halted the run but Quigley and O”Hanrahan fired over to widen the gap to six points. Begley then delivered his team’s fifth point of the half but from there until half time it was Meath who made all the running. Points from Kyle Donnelly, Pa Ryan, Eamon O’Donnchadha and a late brace from corner forward O’Hanrahan sent Meath in at the break leading 0-15 to 0-5.

Tyrone enjoyed more possession after the restart but even wind assisted they found the Meath defence difficult to penetrate. Duffin landed his second point of the game but there were no further scores until Meath hit their first goal on forty six minutes after a speculative effort from Eamon O Donnchadha deceived Tyrone goalkeeper Conor Mc Elhatton and ended up in the net.

That score more or less sealed the result as Meath showed their qualities with fine stick work, clever passes and superb tackling. Duffin and Begley struck over points for Tyrone but the home side needed a couple of goals to get back into the contest. Unfortunately for them Meath were not in any form to be charitable as full forward Eamon O’Donnchadha struck over a lovely score.

Both teams made changes as the clock ran down and Meath nicked a second goal when wing forward Stephen Morris bundled the sliotar to the back of the net with time almost up. Simon Ennis concluded the scoring with the last point of the match as Meath maintained their unbeaten run.