St Loman's, Mullingar 3-13

Tyrrellspass 0-14

John Heslin scored 2-6, including a spectacular goal straight from the throw-in, as 14-man St. Loman's trumped Tyrrellspass for the second year in-a-row to claim their third successive Westmeath SFC title before a crowd of 5,300 at TEG Cusack Park.

The county star caught the ball from the throw-in before soloing through a static Tyrrellspass defence and firing to the roof of the net. Tyrrellspass were shell-shocked and conceded another goal four minutes later when Heslin and Ken Casey combined to set up Sean Flanagan - whose grandfather Paddy lends his name to the senior championship cup - for a tap-in.

Trailing by 0-1 to 2-0, Tyrrellspass hit back with points from Ger Egan, David Glennon and Aaron O'Brien to reduce the deficit to the minimum after 13 minutes. Luke Dempsey's charges were reduced to 14 men in the 29th minute when full back Shane Flynn was sent off by referee Declan Nugent, but they still led by 2-5 to 0-8 at the interval.

Points from Shane Dempsey and Heslin at the start of the second half suggested that Loman's were in no mood to give up their title, but the 'Tidy Town' stayed in touch with scores from Conor Slevin and county captain Egan, who finished with 0-9 to his credit.

The margin was still three points with eight minutes remaining, but then Tyrrellspass were dealt a double blow when Ben Gavin was dismissed and Heslin pointed the resultant free.

That deflated Alan Mangan's men as Casey and Flanagan added points before Heslin wrapped up the three-in-a-row with his second major late on.

St. Loman's, Mullingar - J Daly; N O'Toole, S Flynn, G Grehan; G Glennon, P Dowdall, D Whelan; P Sharry (0-1), J Heslin (2-6, 0-6f); K Reilly, R O'Toole, D Windsor; K Casey (0-3), S Flanagan (1-1), S Dempsey (0-2). Subs: J O'Toole for K Reilly, K Lynam for N O'Toole, C Reilly for J O'Toole (BC), G Hickey for R O'Toole, C Kilmurray for S Dempsey, B O'Loughlin for D Windsor.

Tyrrellspass - D Quinn; S Quinn, J Gonoud, E O'Neill; B Gavin (0-1), B Slevin, C Slevin (0-2, 1f); C Dunne, Denis Glennon; V Sizychas, A O'Brien (0-1), D McNicholas; D Jessop, David Glennon (0-1), G Egan (0-9, 8f). Subs: K Geraghty for D Jessop, P Sheridan for S Quinn, N Harte for A O'Brien, M Geraghty for C Dunne.

Referee - D Nugent.

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