Wallace rescues point for wasteful Meath

As the clock in O'Connor Park Tullamore ticked ominously towards 75 minutes Meath trailed by three points and were on the cusp of a fourth game without a win in NFL Div 2 - up step Joey Wallace.

Just before Covid hit Wallace was the hero for Ratoath when they stole victory in the 2020 SFC final with his late goal and today he was on hand to rescue what could yet turn out to be a valuable point, 1-10 each, for Meath in their bid to stave off relegation.

After falling behind to Niall McNamee's brilliant 64th minute goal Meath were twice denied by the heroics of Offaly's excellent goalkeeper Paddy Dunican, but they never gave up.

As a succession of attacks rained down on the Offaly square Meath were repelled by the visitors, chance after chance came and went, defeat looked a certainty.

In one last hurrah Ronan Jones lobbed the ball goalwards. Eoin Harkin climbed highest to deflect the ball goalwards, but again Dunican stood in the way. However, this time the ball rebounded off Wallace and into the net.

After consideration and consultation with his umpires referee Fergal Kelly awarded the goal and from the resultant kickout he blew his final whistle.

Instead of two points lost, it was a point gained for Meath, but again it should have been so much more as they struggled to adapt to the blustery wind conditions that undoubtedly made life very difficult.

Trailing by just a point at the break after playing against the disadvantage of the wind, Meath would have been expected to kick on, but they didn't.

Every time Meath looked like getting on top Dunican came to Offaly's rescue with fine saves and Dylan Hyland kept their tally ticking over with some excellent scores.

It was a battle royal, and until almost the sixth minute of injury-time it looked like Offaly would win it.

It took both sides a while to come to terms with the conditions and neither managed to do so with any degree of totally effectiveness.

Shane Walsh opened the scoring from a free in the fourth minute, but Offaly responded immediately with Jack Bryant leveling it up.

Another six minutes elapsed before Offaly used the wind at their backs to edge in front from a Niall McNamee free, but Meath found it tough with the wind turning a 20-metre free from Walsh wide.

Goalkeeper Harry Hogan added to Meath's tally in the 20th minute with a free from the left with his left, but again Offaly looked more creative as a defence-splitting pass from Ruairi McNamee picked out his cousin Niall whose rasping shot clipped the crossbar on the way over.

Thomas O'Reilly had a great goal chance brilliantly blocked by Colm Doyle before a handle on the ground offence gifted Jordan Morris a free which he converted to restore parity, 0-3 each.

Donal Keogan prevented a certain goal for Jordan Hayes with a fine block, but from the resultant '45' Dunican found his range to edge Offaly ahead again.

Morris and Hogan converted frees to give Meath a lead for a second time, 0-5 to 0-4 in the 35th minute, but Offaly rallied again with Hyland and Mark Abbott securing a 0-6 to 0-5 interval lead.

Meath resumed with just 14 men after Jack O'Connor picked up a needless black card on the stroke of half-time and Offaly took advantage of their numerical supremacy.

Both Scully and Cillian O'Sullivan dropped efforts short before Matt Costello was denied by a fine save from Dunican. On the counter-attack Niall McNamee stretched Offaly's lead and in the 43rd minute Hyland pointed again to make it 0-8 to 0-5.

After O'Connor returned, Meath gave themselves hope with scores from Keogan (Meath's first from play since Shane Walsh's 26th minute score against Down in the previous round) and Morris.

Hyland settled Offaly again as Meath kicked wide after wide (they managed 11 wides over the 79 minutes) and squandered decent attacks with poor final passes.

Even a superb score from Harkin couldn't inspire greater things as Hyland again restored Offaly's two-point cushion.

However, as the game entered the final 10 minutes Morris and Scully levelled it for Meath and they looked odds on to storm to victory.

However Niall McNamee linked up brilliantly with Anton Sullivan and Ruairi McNamee to fire what looked like the winning goal in the 64th minute.

Meath tried to get back on terms and the harder they tried the worse they failed as Jones had a goalbound shot blocked and Morris was denied by Dunican.

However when almost everyone else had given up hope Jones, Harkin and ultimately Wallace stayed alive to scramble a priceless goal that could yet have a major say in determining Meath's season.

SCORERS

Meath - Jordan Morris 0-4 two frees; Joey Wallace 1-0; Harry Hogan 0-2 frees; Shane Walsh 0-1 frees; Donal Keogan 0-1; Eoin Harkin 0-1; Jason Scully 0-1;

Offaly - Niall McNamee 1-3 one frees; Dylan Hyland 0-4; Jack Bryant 0-1; Paddy Dunican 0-1 '45'; Mark Abbott 0-1;

TEAMS

Meath - Harry Hogan; Robin Clarke, Eoin Harkin, Jordan Muldoon; Cathal Hickey, Shane McEntee, Donal Keogan; Padraic Harnan, Ronan Jones; Cillian O'Sullivan, Thomas O'Reilly, Matt Costello; Jordan Morris, Shane Walsh, Jason Scully. Subs - Jack O'Connor for Hickey 16 mins, Ronan Ryan for Clarke 30m, Eamon Wallace for O'Reilly 51m, Joey Wallace for O'Sullivan 53m, James McEntee for Costello 67m.

Offaly - Paddy Dunican; Declan Hogan, James Lalor, Niall Darby; Cian Donohoe, David Dempsey, Colm Doyle; Bill Carroll, Jordan Hayes; Kieran Dolan, Mark Abbott, Dylan Hyland; Jack Bryant, Niall McNamee, Ruairi McNamee. Subs - Cathal Donoghue for Donohoe 20 mins, Anton Sullivan for Donoghue 51m, Keith O'Neill for Bryant 58m, Cathal Flynn for Abbott 69m, Cormac Egan for R McNamee 72m.

Referee - Fergal Kelly (Longford).