Brawl comes back to haunt Meath

I wrote a few weeks ago that the brawl at Parnell Park during the league could come back to haunt Dublin and Meath in the Leinster championship and today the chickens came home to roost.
Meath minus the five suspended players were edged out by just one point after a great second half fightback by Wexford.
This is a game which should never have got away from Meath who were leading by ten points half through the second half.
However, as Wexford steamed forward Meath became increasingly ragged and they seemed bereft of ideas of how to close out the game apart from some very cycnical fouls.
Mark Ward's sending off was pure stupidity dragging down a man when he was on a run when he was already on a yellow.
However, his midfield colleague Meade can count himself very lucky not to join him for a terrible foul when he elbowed a Wexford player in the face.
I don't think there is any doubt that Meath would have progressed to the semi finals with their full contingent but the indiscipline at Parnell Park robbed Colm Coyle of options when the tide turned against them.
Meath now head for the qualifiers and although they will have a full squad by the time they are back in action the Royals will be disappointed at blowing the chance to meet great rivals Dublin in the Leinster final.
With Monaghan and now Donegal also in the qualifiers there are a lot of banana skins there and it's a notoriously difficult route to rebuild your challenge.