Despite producing a patchy performance throughout and having to play the last 22 minutes a man down after the sending off of Conal O'Riain, Dublin still maintained their 100% start to life in Division 1B of the National Hurling League with a seven-point win over Westmeath in Mullingar.
Remarkably, Dublin’s John Hetherton was booked after 30 seconds following a challenge on Westmeath goalie Jack Gillen. Aided by a slight wind, Westmeath took the lead via Darragh McCormack in the second minute. The visitors were 0-03 to 0-02 ahead when Conal O’Riain buried the sliotar past Gillen in the tenth minute, and when they led by 1-06 to 0-04 after a quarter of an hour they seemed set for a facile win.
However, Westmeath rallied with five unanswered points, courtesy of Eamon Cunneen, who had earlier pointed superbly from a lineball, Peter Clarke (one), and a hat-trick from the lively David Williams - two of them from frees - thereby tieing up the scoring at 1-06 to 0-09.
Dublin had slightly the better of the exchanges in the second quarter with Diarmaid Ó Dúlaing on song from frees and open play. Williams was unable to convert his second '65’ with time almost up in the first half, leaving Dublin ahead by 1-12 to 0-12 at the break.
The third quarter was a poor spectacle with only four points scored in total – three to the Metropolitans from the sticks of Ó Dúlaing (two frees) and Fergal Whitely (one from play), and one to Westmeath from Cunneen. Gillen came forward in the 42nd minute to try and blast a goal from a close-range free, but his shot was saved. The red-carding of O’Riaian for an off-the-ball incident in the 52nd minute gave home fans a little hope of producing a shock, but Dublin still led at that juncture by 1-15 to 0-13.
Williams continued to excel in the Lake County attack and his splendid quickfire brace had the deficit down to just a goal. The game was niggly at this juncture, but Dublin never looked in any real danger of dropping their first points of the campaign despite some poor shooting.
Gary Greville was denied what would have been a spectacular goal by Eddie Gibbons on the 70-minute mark. With that, any slim chance of a shock evaporated, and Dublin wrapped up their win with three late unanswered points from David Purcell, Daire Gray and Whitely.
Westmeath: Jack Gillen; Conor Gaffney, Tommy Doyle, Gary Greville (0-01); Johnny Bermingham, Aaron Craig, Eoin Keyes; Peter Clarke (0-01), Shane Williams; Robbie Greville, Darragh McCormack (0-01), Mark Cunningham (0-01); Eamon Cunneen (0-03, one lineball), Niall Mitchell, David Williams (0-10, 0-04 frees, 0-01 ‘65’). Subs: Rory Keyes for R Greville (inj., 6), David O’Reilly (0-01) for Mitchell (46), Joey Boyle for S Williams (48), Davy Glennon for R Keyes (61), Niall O’Brien for Cunneen (63), Adam Ennis for Doyle (blood, 67).
Dublin: Eddie Gibbons; John Bellew, David Lucey, Paddy Smyth; Kevin Burke, Chris Crummey, Daire Gray (0-01); Conor Burke, Diarmaid Ó Dúlaing (0-09, 0-07 frees); Conor Donohoe (0-01), Conal O’Riain (1-01), Darragh Power (0-02); Dara Purcell (0-01), John Hetherton (0-01), Fergal Whitely (0-03). Subs: David Purcell (0-02) for Hetherton (30), Brian Hayes for Power (46), Brendan Kenny (0-01) for Dara Purcell (59), Paddy Dunnleavy for Crummey (inj., 60), Ciarán Foley for Kenny (blood, 67).
Ref: Thomas Walsh (Waterford).
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