Meath…1-23
Donegal…0-16
Thank you Charlie Ennis. You have hopefully broken the curse of being the featured photo on http://www.boylantalkssport.com whilst also keeping Meath’s push for promotion out of Div. 2B of the Allianz NHL firmly on track. Allow me to explain…
The first half of the above, that is. You see, whenever I’m working on a post on the site, one part of the process involved is selecting what’s known as the Featured Photo. In other words, the photo which will be visable with a post before a patron clicks into the nuts and bolts thereof. By way of selling what the post is about.
For example, when Colm O’Rourke was appointed as Meath football manager, the lead photo was, shock, one of An Bainisteoir Nua. Or when Amber Barrett unleashed the shot which created Irish Ladies soccer history, the Donegal star was front page news everywhere.
Perhaps the best example of the lot to deploy here would be to use that of my Racing Tips. Which is, genuinely, the bread and butter of what drives most traffic to the website. Something which I’m both surprised by and proud of.
Now, despite what one individual constantly complains and tries to get me reported about, I am NOT promoting gambling, merely posting what horses I think will win races in Ireland on a given day.
To that end though, when putting my tips up, if, for example, there’s a particularly high profile horse, i. e. Honeysuckle, running or a particular jockey or trainer is fancied to have a winner, they will be the face of a piece.
But here’s the thing, very often it comes back to bite me in the ass. For example, following his haul of 2-2 against Clare, Donal Lenihan fronted the piece detailing the team news for the trip to Derry.
What happens? He gets hauled off ten minutes into the second half. Sorry Lenno! With racing its even worse, the amount of times I’ve fancied horses/trainers/riders to have a good day only for the arse to fall out of the ship would fill half of Croke Park!
So maybe, nay, hopefully, Charlie Ennis has laid the ghost to rest for once and all. The Trim clubman is one of the custodians in hurling is beyond despite. Indeed, anyone that didn’t know as such already was surely enlightened to the fact during the Meath kingpins’ run to the Leinster Club IHC Final.
If, even after all that, there were those who still hadn’t seen or heard of our gifted goalie, he was pulling off magic tricks in Pairc Tailteann again on Sunday as Meath survived a stern examination against a skilful and determined Donegal team.
Meath led from the off here and, with wind advantage in the opening half, had chalked up 14 points compared to their visitors’ eight. The conundrum in such a situation is trying to build up a big enough buffer and then pondering whether to try fortifying it or concentrating on holding what you have.
In fairness, Seoirse Bulfin’s men got the balance as right as anybody could given the conditions. Our visitors from the North West used the elements to their best benefit and, led by the exceptional Declan Coulter, trimmed the deficit to three points and might have caused the locals even greater panic were it not for Ennis’ superb stop from the Donegal sharpshooter.
The latter event obviously roused Meath into life again and – in what is turning into an admirable and useful trait – they finished strongly with Dunderry’s Jamie Leevy netting late on to complete an important day’s work.
SCORERS: P. O’Hanrahan (0-11), E. O’Donnchadh (0-5), J. Leavy (1-0), N. Potterton (0-2), J. Toher, J. Kelly, P. Ryan, S. Ennis, P. Barnwell (0-1 each).
MEATH: C. Ennis; S. Morris, M. Burke, B. McKeon; D. Healy, J. Toher, J. Kelly; M. Healy, P. Ryan; S. Quigley, S. Ennis, N. McLarnon; N. Potterton, E. O’Donnchadh, P. O’Hanrahan.
SUBS: J. Regan for Burke, P. Barnwell for Quigley, M. Cole for McLarnan, J. Cole for Poterton, J. Leavy for Kelly.
Referee – K. Jordan (Tipperary).