14-man Kildare facing uphill second half battle as they trail Meath by two points in Christy Ring semi-final

Meath 1-10

An absolute classic is occurring in St Conleth's Park at the moment as 14-man Kildare are hanging by the coattails of a fine Meath side to ensure that they remain in strong contention to make it through to the Christy Ring Cup final.

It really looked like it could have been game over after 18 minutes when Paul Divilly was sent off for an off the ball incident which left Meath's Damian Healy in a heap on the ground, while the Royals went up the field and found the net through Gavin McGowan just a minute later. That left the score at 1-7 to 0-4, and because of the numerical advantage Meath had, it looked like game over.

Kildare regrouped however, and led by a superb display from Gerry Keegan, they kept plucking away at the Meath lead, eventually reducing the gap to two.

Keegan and James Toher have been the two scoring stars for their sides, with both men scoring 0-7 each, while McGowan has struck 1-2 in a fine performance.

It will be an uphill battle for Kildare in the second half, but they have shown enough to suggest that they can pull off an unlikely victory here.