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An empty O’Moore park and the kind of cold November rain once made famous by the Guns’n’Roses band is not the usual setting for the soccer championship, but while some things were very unusual in the quarterfinals of the Leinster championship tonight at O’Moore Park, in other areas it was business as usual.
The past five years have seen many occasions when Dublin has shown more flair and panache than they exhibited tonight, but when it comes to the business of winning football matches, this was all Dessie Farrell would have wanted when her charges closed. Westmeath’s resistance before it got under way.
The champions Leinster and All-Ireland had four points on the board in the space of six minutes, and man of the match Ciarán Kilkenny was already wreaking havoc with his tireless energy and impeccable ball use.
Dean Rock (twice) Seán Bugler and Kilkenny were all on the roster from the start and while Westmeath rebounded with some excellent scores from John Heslin and Luke Loughlin, Dublin’s attack never wavered and, because of the water break, they led by five, 0-07 to 0-02.
In the expulsion of Westmeath, Dublin was imperious. They pressurized Jason Daly’s restarts and forced a slew of 50/50 balls down the middle, where his baseline halfway in particular was great at devouring the breaks.
The quick transition and straight run provided good quality opportunities, with eight Dublin players in total entering the roster in the first half, none of which could be described as low-percentage lottery shots. Only when the goal was almost unmissable did Dublin pull the trigger, as evidenced by the halftime ratio of 15 points to two widths.
There were brilliant moments for the midlanders, most notably an impressive score from Ray Connellan right at halftime, but they were unable to compete with a balanced team from Dublin that saw eight players record at least one game score in the first 35 minutes. minutes.
Since the break, a combination of increasingly heavy rain, deterioration of the playing surface and the inevitability of the result caused the game to lose more than a little of the snap and energy it possessed in the first half.
Westmeath, who had now dropped John Heslin back to midfield, found possession a bit easier to come by, but still struggled to create good opportunities, often resorting to low-percentage efforts from bad angles or long distances. . Dublin’s form went down as well, with good scores like James McCarthy and Robert McDaid becoming more of an occasional treat than a staple diet.
Westmeath’s lack of penetration and Dublin’s aversion to risk meant that scoring opportunities were almost non-existent, the only exceptions being a Dean Rock movie being cleared off the line by Ronan Wallace, and at the other end a shot from the Wandering winger James Dolan who was blocked by Jonny Cooper.
It is not the material of the featured reels, but the material on which the championship races are made.
Dublin: Stephen Cluxton; Michael Fitzsimons, Jonny Cooper (0-01), Eoin Murchan (0-01); JamesMcCarthy (0-01), John Small, Robert McDaid (0-01); Brian Fenton, Tom Lahiff; Niall Scully (0-01), Ciarán Kilkenny (0-05), Seán Bugler (0-02); Paddy Small (0-02), With O’Callaghan (0-01), Dean Rock (0-07, 0-06 free).
Subs: Brian Howard for Bugler (49), Cormac Costello for P Small (51), David Byrne for Fitzsimons (55), Aaron Byrne for Scully (60), Eric Lowndes for Murchan (66).
Westmeath: Jason Daly; Boidu Sayeh, Kevin Maguire, Jack Smith; Jamie Gonoud, Ronan Wallace (0-01), James Dolan; Ray Connellan (0-02), Sam Duncan; David Lynch, John Heslin (0-02, 0-01 free), Killian Daly; Ronan O’Toole (0-01), Luke Loughlin (0-02), Kieran Martin (0-03, 0-02 free).
Subs: Conor Slevin for K Daly (49), Callum McCormack for Lynch (52), Lorcan Dolan for Martin (54), Anthony McGivney for Loughlin (60), Brandon Kelly for O’Toole (70).
Referee: Martin McNally (Monaghan)
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