Frightening. The toughest team on earth came to Croke Park to take care of business on a maudlin Saturday evening and drained the colour and life from the darling boys of summer.

Meath's inexorable progression to the Bank of Ireland semi-final with a stony expulsion of their neighbours Westmeath was based on that great intangible asset of theirs. Winning. Meath, as ever, won purely because winning is really all Meath know.

No, they were not particularly brilliant. And it did not matter that their corner-back, Hank Traynor, was sent-off after 17 minutes for two bookings. Fourteen men are enough for any job.

Irrelevant also were the signs that the Gilesian radar from frees was not functioning as it might. Ray McGee, announced as a late starter, calmly slotted in to hit a goal and three frees. It mattered not that Ollie Murphy didn't score for 55 minutes or that his twin tormentor, Graham Geraghty had a 68-minute dry run. None of it mattered.

"When it's slippery on top," confided manager Seβn Boylan later, "anything can happen." Anything did and Meath still won.

It was a classic show from the Leinster champions. As if embarrassed by last week's repeated exposure by Westmeath's blue-chip forwards, the Meath rearguard redefined the nature of meanness in this replay.

The open highways that Martin Flanagan, Michael Ennis and Dessie Dolan romped through in the drawn game had now been transformed to late-night NYC back-alleys. Places you just don't go down. Repeatedly, the Westmeath attackers did and every time, they paid.

Darren Fay and Mark O'Reilly once again cordoned off their sections of Croke Park and attempted occupations were both shortlived and joyless. Cormac Murphy regained something of his early summer form while Donal Curtis and, later on, Graham Geraghty both fell back to chase and harry, harry, harry.

When Meath's defence is functioning, the rest normally falls into place. So no surprises when they upset Westmeath as early as the seventh minute. Ollie Murphy took possession, flicked a pass for Giles, who spied Geraghty loitering on the left side of the small square, Canal end. Giles snapped the pass and Geraghty, the born poacher, palmed his goal off the post and full back David Mitchell. Even then, one sensed.

Westmeath found themselves playing new concept football, founded on survival principles. The glorious exhibitionists of last week were never in evidence.

They stayed in touch, with Rory O'Connell magnificent at midfield, Joe Fallon and Paul Conway making the most of their chances and John Keane and Mitchell trying valiantly to keep Meath's front two in check.

But manager Luke Dempsey never liked the portents. "When they had a man sent-off, I just felt it was going to complicate things for us."

His fears materialised. Westmeath failed to utilise Fergal Murray's free-roaming presence and the side's scoring rate was stinted and choppy.

Trailing 1-3 to 0-5 at the break, they found themselves for a few minutes after the restart, with Fallon pointing after taking a fine pass off O'Connell before Conway pushed them into the lead.

Then Meath struck fatally, with Westmeath's David Murphy slipping before a bouncing ball that fell to Ollie Murphy, who fed it on to Ray McGee.

The Kilmainhamwood man, a bit-player in recent years, turned clear and buried his goal. A minute later, he added a free and Meath were in control again, 2-4 to 0-8. They preserved that thin advantage throughout an uneasy, bickering second half.

"I thought it was physical out there, I didn't think it was dirty," observed Boylan.

"There were bone-crushing tackles, both sides. But that's it - it shows how much people wanted to win." When asked if he felt that maybe Meath had invited the fringe shaping that spoiled many minutes of play, Luke Dempsey nodded.

"I would have to concur with that because all week we had spoken about avoiding getting sucked into that. It has never been our way and never will. But having said that, those incidents were just handbag stuff and the reason we didn't win was that we couldn't get enough ball from midfield to feed quickly into our forwards."

Meath, though, made use of what ball they had. Trevor Giles was again surgical in the precision of his passes, tireless in work rate and radiated that familiar calm through it all. He has an untouchable quality.

Ollie Murphy turned the great provider, assisting in the majority of all Meath's scores and then presenting himself to exquisitely land the two points that put his team clear in the last 15 minutes. The team kicked three wides during the whole match and whereas most 14-man efforts tend to die at the end, Meath grew more expressive.

Indeed, Meath were darkly magnificent in the closing period, quenching their opponents. Des Dolan's free after 58 minutes would be Westmeath's last score. Fallon and Heavin both had wides, but apart from that, it was all Meath.

"Lads, this was a wonderful Westmeath team and they seemed to be cutting railroads through us at times," marvelled Boylan.

"We had the experience, but what you have to find out is, had we the balls to have a go at it, to take on the game."

Now, they take on Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final, a potential epic of contrasting football, accents and literary traditions. Pβidi ╙ SΘ could hardly have been presented with a more unreadable path to the final. Seβn Boylan confessed he hadn't seen Kerry's afternoon win, repeating that he was just delighted that Meath were contenders yet.

"That's the luck of the game," he twinkled. "We finished strongly. If the luck is with you, you can do impossible things."

It is hard to believe, though, that luck has any role in this enthralling story of Meath greatness. Voodoo maybe, but not luck.