A dogged Tyrone gave newly-promoted Meath a flavour of the realities of competing in Gaelic football’s top tier as they eased to a five-point success at Healy Park.

All-Star nominee Conor McGill has admitted Ratoath’s journey from the junior ranks in Meath to the brink of senior success has been a rapid one.

Having twice been shortlisted for the top individual award, six-time All-Ireland winning captain Stephen Cluxton is in the shake-up to claim his first footballer of the year as one of Dublin’s 13 PwC All-Star nominations.

Dublin are on the brink of history and already have seven SFC wins to their name this summer, and John Fogarty reflects that in his August All-Stars. But how do the other counties fare?

You could cut the tension with a knife. Everyone was on edge wondering how would the fun-loving, stone-mad GAA fan handle the windswept conditions in Portrush.

Donegal were 9-point winners against Meath at the sun-kissed Ballybofey, although the scoreboard only tells half the story of a gripping contest.

The Leinster Senior Football Championship has long been crying ‘stop’ and Dublin have long since stopped listening. This wasn’t quite a pulverisation, but unquestionably another endorsement of capital might.

We all know the biggest bugbear about GAA officiating is inconsistency and there was a classic case of it in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday. For the same infringement, Anthony Nolan made three different calls.

A record ninth Leinster SFC title in a row for Dublin but one that came in slightly unusual circumstances.

Warm June rain greeted us as we exited Croke Park yesterday with smiles on the faces of the Royal supporters, in particular. Dublin pelleted over points for fun while both Kildare and Laois squandered some great goal chances. The centurion Cluxton culled the Lillies’ goal efforts and the quality of the forward play and score-taking was exceptional, at times, from all four participating teams.

Bryan McMahon saved Meath's blushes with a late goal to turn a potential disaster into a battling Leinster SFC win for the hosts in Navan.

Paul Keane When Meath finally gained promotion to Division 1 by beating Fermanagh last month, veteran defender Mickey Burke admitted it was ‘almost more important than the Championship’.

There was a sensational ending to this fully-blooded Division 2 NFL encounter as a penalty goal from Barry Dardis in added time strengthened Meath’s promotion push at Pairc Tailteann.

All-Ireland winner Patrick McBrearty showed all his big game experience with a dramatic 73rd minute winning point at Pairc Tailteann to send Donegal through to Round 4A of the qualifiers.

Meath 1-10 Armagh 0-8: On goes Meath’s winter of content.

Those who partitioned Meath from Westmeath around 500 years ago didn’t do the Lake County any favours, not in Gaelic football terms at least.

Martin McHugh’s infamous ‘two-trick pony’ gibe regarding Colm Cooper has been turned back on him by Meath manager Mick O’Dowd who has labelled the Donegal man a ‘one-trick analyst’.

For a side with ambitions of taking down the number one team in Ireland, Graham Reilly accepted that struggling against the joint worst team in the country isn’t a great start for Meath.

An intriguing feature of the build-up to Meath’s first championship outing was the positivity of the players and their insistence that Dublin aren’t unbeatable.

Mick O’Dowd has ruled former skipper Kevin Reilly out of Meath’s Leinster championship opener with Wicklow and admitted it’ll be a ‘bonus’ if the stricken defender does return at some point in the campaign.

If the Myth of Sisyphus rings true for any team in Gaelic games, it’s surely the Meath footballers.