It's no exaggeration to say that Carlow threw this one away, helped by three unfortunate goals but not the sole reason.

With minutes to go to half time Carlow had got themselves into a good position - three points down and the benefit of a gale force wind to come. However the concession of 2-1 in the closing minutes left them with a mountain to climb.

The half time score read 3-5 to 0-4.

It's an old saying more related to football maybe than hurling that goals win games. Well it was certainly true yesterday for while Carlow fought back valiantly and indeed ‘outscored' the visitors by 15 scores to 14 the gap proved just too big on the day and Westmeath deservedly progress to meet Galway.

It would be very easy blame the goalkeepers but Kevin Kehoe was facing into the sun and the ball was waivering in the wind - very hard to deal with, even if it looks simple from the ‘bank'. Carlow scored a similar goal too.

Leaving aside the goals, the game was very scrappy in the middle third and was greatly affected by the wind. Carlow puck outs had difficulty making our own '65' while Westmeath's landed inside our '65' putting Carlow under ferocious pressure. And credit the Westmeath goal keeper who still managed good second half distance and placement.

Ball tended to be scrappy after the puck outs, neither side winning it cleanly and a lot of poor handling and bunching resulted.

Both sides had impressive free takers - Ruairi Dunbar mastered the elements with a fine return of 0-9, 0-6 from frees and 0-1 from a '65'. Likewise Brendan Murtagh hit 0-7 from frees for the winners.

On reflection the scoring return from the Carlow forward line was as big a problem as the goals conceded - Eddie Byrne was the only other forward to score, a point form play while we only managed three wides from the rest of the forward line. A poor return and certainly not good enough at this level.

Shane Kavanagh was excellent despite having a hard task in keeping Murtagh scoreless from play. Edward Cody, Eoin Nolan (0-3 from play) and Richard Cody (1-0) were solid in the half back line; Mark Brennan was immense in the first half but appeared to be injured for much of the second period having taken some heavy knocks. Craig Doyle opened in sparkling form but quickly faded - perhaps lack of match practice told. Eddie Byrne won some second half frees and looks like he has more to offer. Only Ruairi Dunbar showed well up front.

Westmeath to their credit played a smart game, bringing a sweeper back in the second half and he mopped up a lot of possession.

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