Frayne leads from the front as Meath make winning start

Meath…0-12

Longford…0-04

These are strange times in the GAA. It’s March 21st and there are Provincial Championships under way. In Leinster at least. There’s absolutely no need for such to be the case, and these arrangements will end up creating more problems than it will solve.

For now, it is what it is however. What the Leinster U-20 FC is to Meath at the moment is crucial. Regrettably and most unhelpfully, the Royal County haven’t reigned supreme at the final underage grade in 22 years. Gut feeling now, though, is that the end of that title drought may be closer now than it has been in years.

Why? Simply due to the quality of player available to Meath U-20 football manager John McCarthy and his fellow mentors. With the group comprising of the group of lads who won the Leinster MFC in 2020 and those who retained that title the following year and added the Tom Markham Cup their haul a year thereafter.

Trim and Meath’s Ciaran Caulfield

Tonight, the visitors to Clonguish made light of the atrocious weather conditions to open an early lead thanks to scores from team Captain Eoghan Frayne, Skryne’s Oisin Keogh and Ciaran Caulfield of Trim.

Longford did eventually settle into the game as Jamie Brady-Hynes got them on the board but when the same three players pointed again and Sean Emmanuel also tacked on a score it left Meath clear by 0-08 to 0-02 having played with whatever advantage could be gleaned from the woeful weather.

Brady-Hynes posted what turned out to be the home side’s final scores of that early in the second half, but with Frayne and Ruairi Kinsella and Liam Stafford driving over fine scores against the elements, it will have left all concerned in fine fettle before taking on Carlow next Tuesday in Ashbourne.

MEATH – B. Hogan; B. O’Halloran, L. Kelly, J. Finnerty; B. O’Reilly, J. O’Regan, S. Leonard; J. Kinlough, C. Gray; C. Caulfield (0-1), E. Frayne (0-6), L. Stafford (0-1); S. Emmanuel (0-1), O. Keogh (0-3), R. Kinsella (0-1). SUBS – T. Bowden for Emmanuel, J. McDonagh for Stafford, O. McDermott for Hogan, B. Moran for Finnerty, C. Ennis for Caulfield.

Leave a Reply