Christy Ring Cup Final

Meath 2-18 Antrim 1-20

By Paul Keane at Croke Park

Sean Quigley emerged as Meath's super substitute with a couple of dramatic late interventions at Croke Park to secure a maiden Christy Ring Cup title success for the Royal County.

The Dunboyne attacker only entered the fray after 64 minutes, but conjured a goal and a priceless point in those closing minutes as Meath came from nine down at one stage to win in their first ever final.

Their reward is a place in next year's Leinster championship qualifier series of games while Antrim will remain in hurling's second tier for another season.

Neil Heffernan matched Quigley's 1-1 haul and Heffernan's goal early in the second-half was the strike that gave Meath the belief they could reel in Dominic McKinley's side who had bossed the first-half.

Captain James Toher weighed in with five points for Meath also while Adam Gannon and Joey Keena contributed three points apiece from open play.

It all looked so bad for Meath early on as they opened nervously and fell 1-7 to 0-1 down after 19 minutes.

But a strong finish to the first-half which saw them outscore Antrim by five points to three hinted at a resurgence despite trailing 1-10 to 0-7 at the interval.

Trim man Heffernan pulled back a point after the restart before intercepting a stray pass in Antrim's defence and firing expertly across the goals for a 42nd minute major which cut the deficit to just four points.

Meath twice narrowed the gap to two points before Antrim established a six-point lead again with four points in a row, two each from Eddie McCloskey and Ciaran Clarke.

It looked as if Antrim were finally ready to pull away, but were hit with a number of sucker punches in the closing minutes as Kevin and Joey Keena, Keith Keoghan and Gannon all pointed for Meath, laying down a platform for Quigley to emerge as their injury-time hero.