Back in the Leinster junior football championship after a year's absence, Westmeath's interests were ended early by a Meath team that would go on to savour All-Ireland success. Question marks were raised about Westmeath's future involvement in the Leinster junior football championship after they crashed to a heavy first round defeat to Meath at Pairc Tailteann last May. The Royals ran out emphatic 0-17 to 0-9 winners, despite the fact that their team was made up exclusively of players from junior and intermediate clubs. Westmeath, who were entitled to pick their second strongest team, started promisingly but fell away badly in the second quarter and were always playing catch-up thereafter. While Westmeath were relatively strong on paper (six of the starting team won All-Ireland medals at minor and under 21 level), their lack of preparatory work was very evident which raises the question: why did they enter the junior championship in the first place? It clearly wasn't taken seriously by the players and perhaps Westmeath would have been better off opting out, just as they had done the previous year. The signs were ominous for Westmeath even before the throw-in when a number of players who had been named on the match programme cried off through injury and illness, making manager Ned Moore's task all the more difficult. Despite this, the visitors started well with points from Alan Hickey and Alan Daly propelling them into a 0-3 to 0-1 lead after 10 minutes. But that was as good as it got for Westmeath who could only manage two more points before the interval which were scored by Hickey and Barry Conroy (free). By contrast, Meath registered 12 first half points, all of which came from play. Three of their forwards - Cathal Sheridan, Stephen Bray and Alan Fox - each scored a hat-trick of excellent points to leave Westmeath 0-5 to 0-12 in arrears at the interval. On the restart, Westmeath began to win a lot more possession around midfield, but it was Meath who surged further in front with another brace of points from the impressive Sheridan. Half-time substitute Liam O'Reilly replied with two similar scores for Westmeath. Then came a period of sustained pressure from the visitors which, unfortunately, failed to yield any scores. In the closing stages, Adrian Corcoran and Alan Hickey knocked over points for Westmeath, but the result was beyond all doubt at that stage. Meath subsquently went on to secure provincial and All-Ireland honours. Had the players given the necessary commitment, who's to say that Westmeath couldn't have done the same. The Westmeath team which played Meath in the Leinster junior football championship was: Dermot Ryan; James Davitt, Joe Corroon, Daniel McDermott; Shane Deering, Aidan Canning, Micheál Burke; Fergal Dardis, Adrian Corcoran; Tom Stuart-Trainor, Ciaran Kilmurray, Barry Conroy; Alan Daly, Tommy Cleary, Alan Hickey. Subs used: Doran Harte, Liam O'Reilly, Anthony Clinton and Ronan Whelan. Tweet

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