A scrappy game, not as good as the two previous matches, but an impressive Meath performance. The weather conditions obviously affected the quality of the play, but there was a fair amount of indiscipline from both teams as well. The players seemed tense and a bit of needle crept in yesterday which we hadn't seen in the previous games.

The crucial difference between this Meath performance and their previous two is that they were much more aggressive in their ball-winning around the middle of the field. They were much sharper attacking the ball. That, for me, was the key factor.

And they also had an outstanding display from Ollie Murphy. We saw a classic corner forward performance from Murphy. His pace, ball-winning and finishing were all top class. His goal was clinical. He didn't panic, just put the ball on the ground and placed it in the corner.

Sean Boylan's tactic of pulling Colm Coyle out to midfield meant that Murphy was isolated inside and had all the space he needed. Boylan's decision to use Coyle in this role worked very well. Coyle is a good forager and good on the ball.

But the emergence of Murphy means that Meath have yet another trump card in what is looking like an awesome attacking unit. They have so many options now. If Giles for example isn't going well one day, then someone else, like Geraghty or Dowd, invariably is. Murphy just adds to their armoury. Defensively, Meath also improved yesterday. Their marking was tighter and you couldn't pick out one Kildare forward who had the beating of his man. Paddy Reynolds also had a tremendous game coming forward.

There were four sendings-off and I thought three of them were bad decisions. In the case of Davy Dalton, in particular, it was very harsh. The ball came off Martin Ryan and Brendan Reilly dived on it with great courage. Dalton had made his move a fraction slower and I'm certain the connection with Reilly was totally unintentional. A very poor decision.

Mark O'Reilly and Brian Murphy had already been booked, but they were sent off for a harmless tangle. Darren Fay didn't protest to the referee about his sending off. This off-the-ball stuff has to be brought to a halt. You can't go round clipping fellows round the head off the ball.

John McDermott was lucky to stay on the field. He was the guilty party in two separate incidents. He's the captain and should be showing better leadership. Nigel Nestor also went in with an elbow on Dalton early on and that went unpunished too. Inconsistent refereeing. Meath generally play it hard and fair, but those incidents yesterday were unacceptable. They played well, but they need to control their aggression a bit. It has cost them three important players for the Leinster final. Fay, in particular, will be a big loss. It's a tough defeat for Kildare to swallow, but they did not play well yesterday. They persisted with their short-passing game, which was foolish given the conditions. It seems to be ingrained in this team. What's the point in playing big target men like Brian Murphy and Martin Lynch when you're not going to kick the ball into them? They were redundant yesterday.

Kildare lacked ideas. The game plan seemed to be based around working the ball forward and winning frees for Niall Buckley or Padraig Graven to convert. Buckley kicked some great points from placed balls, but you're not going to win games on frees alone. Kildare have made great progress, though, and I expect them to come back strongly next year.

Over in Roscommon, the slow tempo of the Connacht final was immediately noticeable. There was very little method or cohesion from either team. Mayo had to play under a huge burden of expectation and there was probably a bit of complacency among the players. I expected them to shake off that complacency as the game went on and notch up a good score, but it just didn't happen. Mayo were always vulnerable if Sligo got a goal and they were certainly relieved to hear the final whistle.

The Mayo forwards, apart from David Nestor who worked very hard, weren't impressive. Ciaran McDonald started well, but kicked a lot of wides, and James Horan attempted shots from crazy angles and distances. Liam McHale won a lot of possession, but it was difficult to understand how the forwards weren't able to create more openings with it. There didn't seem to be any movement off the ball. Colm McManamon's ball-winning ability was badly missed.

The Sligo defence has to be commended, though, for all the tracking and covering they did. Pat Kilcoyne, their goalkeeper, also kept them in it with some excellent saves. Sligo kept hanging in all through the second half. They won a good bit of possession, but they didn't have enough experience and composure in the forward line to convert it into scores. Paul Taylor and Eamonn O'Hara are top class footballers though.

Yesterday's game could help the Mayo players - that performance will knock the talking off them. They will know they played poorly and they will also know that they have a lot of work to do. But they got the job done and they can now focus on playing the Leinster champions in the All-Ireland semi-final.