Despite trying extremely hard, Ballinlough found Summerhill a vastly superior unit as the north Meath side crashed to a 0-20 to 1-6 defeat. Played at Longwood, a trip of nearly 30 miles for the losers, Summerhill had first advantage of the breeze and steep hill. Instead of playing the expected long ball, the winners patiently built from the back and their short passing game saw them only 0-8 to 0-2 clear at the break. Ballinlough, the rank outsiders, had to be satisfied with their first half work as a young back line with Lorcan Maguire, Padraig Ryan and Padraig Muldoon to the fore, more than held their own. However, any ideas of a shock were knocked on the head five minutes into the second half as Summerhill shot four points on the trot to go 0-12 to 0-2 clear. Ballinlough kept trying and a goal from Ken Rothwell and a series of pointed frees from 16 year old Anthony Lynch gave the scoreline a touch of respectability. The losers were short a number of key players like Jim and Joe Byrne and Vinny Ryan and were not helped when influential defender Karl Reilly retired with a hamstring problem in the early stages. Other performances of note came from Bengy Smith, Seamus Fagan and the Mallons, Cian and Colm who had played for the Meath minors the previous day. County star Peadar Byrne had a quiet 60 minutes. The Ballinlough team and scorers were: K Thompson, P Muldoon, L Maguire, P Ryan, J Reilly, K Devine, K Reilly, D Muldoon, Cian Mallon, Colm Mallon, P Byrne, B Smith, K Rothwell (1-0), S Fagan, A Lynch (0-6). Subs: T Fagan for K Reilly, J O'Keeffe for J Reilly, C Maguire for D Muldoon, R Farrell for Colm Mallon Tweet

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