The promise of Westmeath football will have to wait until the SFC qualifiers, after a renewed and reinvigorated Meath side easily disposed of the Midlanders on a scoreline of 1-11 to 0-5 at O'Moore Park in Portlaoise this evening.
Fine individual performances on the part of stalwarts Trevor Giles and Graham Geraghty were enough to see the Royal County through, in a first round replay which failed to live up to the drama of last Sunday's drawn match at Croke Park - with the Westmeath side a pale shadow of the team that lined out a week ago.
The game itself turned on two incidents in the second half. First off, Westmeath forward Dessie Dolan, who had not scored during the match, missed a penalty that could have stopped the Midlanders' rot. From the kick-out Meath worked the ball through to corner forward David Crimmins, who worked it easily past the advancing Aidan Lennon to give the Royals what would prove to be an unassailable lead.
From there on in it was plain sailing for Sean Boylan's men, who now go forward to meet Kildare at Croke Park next Saturday.
Earlier, Donegal disposed of Longford in the first round of the SFC qualifiers on a scoreline of 1-17 to 1-11 at Ballybofey.