MATCH AT A GLANCE: Meath v Derry

MAN OF THE MATCH

It's not too often a lad scores seven points from play in a winning effort and isn't the best player on the field, but that was the case for James Conlon against Derry as Donal Keogan produced one of his greatest ever performances ina green and gold jersey - and he's had quite a few. Keogan was immense. Not only scoring 1-2, but winning tackles, making interceptions, plucking the ball from the skies, directing traffic and effectively running the show. The Rathkenny was sublime from start to finish.

MOVE OF THE MATCH

Watching Meath attack at pace is a joy, and it didn't take long for them to get into their stride as Sean Rafferty burst from defence on one of his trademark surging runs just five minutes into the contest. After his lung bursting run, Rafferty got his head up to pick out James Conlon who played a quick one-two with Mathew Costello before the Dunshaughlin man offloaded to Donal Keogan. Keogan found himself one-on-one with 'keeper Shea McGuckin, but with a swivel of the hips and a drop of the shoulder he went round the Derry man before directing the ball to the net with the deftest of touches off the outside of his right. Simply magnificent from start to finish.

MAGIC MOMENT

There were so many moments of brilliance from Meath. Donal Keogan's goal, Ronan Ryan's block to deny James Sargent, Bryan Menton's two-pointer, James Conlon's 45th minute point from the right and Jack Flynn's early orange flag, but the pride of place has to go to Conlon for the beautiful dummy he sold to Derry's Gareth Kinless before clipping over a 31st minute point to make it 1-8 to 1-6. Chef's kiss.

AND ANOTHER THING

I know it's a different era and the rules are much tighter now, but it's a good job today's referees weren't tasked with officiating games in years gone by. The 'scuffle' that occured as the teams were heading in at half-time was little more than handbags at dawn, but referee Sean Hurson, who was also in charge when Donegal and Kerry had their tete et tete earlier this summer, saw fit to red card Meath coach John McCarthy, issue a yellow card to substitute James McEntee and dish out black cards to Meath's Cian McBride and Ronan Ryan and Derry's Gareth Kinless and Conor Doherty. The zero tolerance approach to dealing with those type of incidents that can happen in the white heat of championship battle shows little understanding of the emotion of the game.