Christy O'Connor: Meath now the hunters with knives sharpened for Louth

Leinster final closure was a massive healing process for all Louth people. Yet while they were in nirvana, Meath were in hell.

Louth players Ciarán Byrne and Conor Grimes, behind, with the Delaney Cup after victory in the Leinster GAA Football Senior Championship final match between Louth and Meath at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

The hunters are now the hunted 

Juiced up on a cocktail of delirium and exhilaration after last year’s Leinster final win against Meath, the Louth players had finally buried the painful memories of the 2010 Leinster final when they were robbed by a late and controversial goal from Joe Sheridan. Louth could finally move on. And yet, the stage and setting was still too good not to exhume some of those memories to help exorcise the ghost of 2010.

Dermot Campbell brought the Delaney Cup down to the Canal End goalmouth and jokingly threw it across the goal-line in a clear reference to how Sheridan had scored his goal 15 years earlier. Sportsfile photographer Piaras Ó Mídheach was right on hand to snap the act. After sharing the photo online, Ó Mídheach added the caption: “Louth get it over the line…” 

Finally doing so after 68 long years was even more of a release when the prospect of winning Leinster seemed further away than ever for Louth in the years that followed 2010 as the Dublin machine ramped up and rolled over all before them in the province.

Going so tantalisingly close in 2010 and then having it ripped away only increased the emotional impact of beating Meath in the final last May. If Louth were to win Leinster, that was the way they would have dreamed it up.

To have that closure was a massive healing process for all Louth people. Yet while they were in nirvana, Meath were in hell – especially the players. That photograph annoyed them. Yet what galled them most was how such a big, physically strong and imposing team couldn’t get their hands on the ball when they needed it most. In the last seven minutes, only one Meath player touched the ball. In that time, Louth stitched 81 passes together, scoring 0-3 to win by two.

Meath spent the following week in purgatory before regrouping to go on an incredible run that saw them reach a first All-Ireland semi-final in 16 years. And now that they’re running into Louth again in Croke Park on Saturday for the first time since last May, Meath are the side with a grudge and a desire for retribution.

And yet, that desire extends far further than just last year because Louth have been an irritant that Meath have been unable to scratch for a while now.

Prior to 2023, Louth had beaten Meath just once in the league in 34 years. Then Louth beat their neighbours in Navan before they turned them over again last March when even a draw would have saw Meath promoted to Division One.

Louth were scrapping for survival in both Division 2 and the Sam Maguire the same afternoon but they played with the confidence of a team that didn’t think they could lose. It was easy for Louth to have that mindset when they’d whacked Meath in the 2024 championship by ten points.

That was Louth’s first championship victory against Meath in 49 years. The week before they beat them in championship again last May, Louth also overcame Meath in the Leinster U20 final to bag a first provincial title in the grade in 44 years.

This is Louth’s most competitive and productive period against Meath since the late 1940s and early 1950s when the sides clashed in 12 massive championship games between 1946-’53. There was never more than one score between the sides in those 12 matches.

Louth beat their neighbours in two of the first three meetings in 1946 and 1948 before the rivalry went to another level. It took three games to separate the sides in the 1949 Leinster semi-final, which Meath won by one point. And that set the trend between the pair for the first four years of the 1950s.

Louth won the 1950 final by one point after a replay. Meath had one point to spare after a replay in the following year’s semi-final before edging past Louth by a single point in the 1952 Leinster final. A year later, Louth were back on the right side of a one-point victory against Meath again in another Leinster decider.

After Louth’s golden era ended in the late 1950s though, it’s taken until now for the good times to return. Across the last 50 years, it’s been extremely rare for a county in the shadow of their more illustrious neighbours and rivals for so long to suddenly become so dominant over that county in so many meetings over such a short timespan.

Offaly beat Dublin in the 1980 and 1982 Leinster finals, and in the 1981-82 league, but Dublin got results against Offaly in the league in those years, while they beat them in the 1983 Leinster final.

After decades of hardship, especially in the early 1990s, Kildare finally got the better of Dublin in the 1998 Leinster quarter-final. They also beat the Dubs in the 2000 provincial final after a replay. Yet the sides only met once in the league during that period, the 1999 quarter-final, a game Dublin won.

Roscommon beat Galway in Connacht finals in 2017 and 2019 but Galway overcame their neighbours in the 2018 provincial final and in the 2019 league when that defeat effectively relegated Roscommon. Yet Roscommon had always been hugely competitive against Galway over the previous five decades.

For decades, Louth had tried in vain to hunt down Meath. But now that Louth are Leinster champions, Meath are their main hunters. And they have the knives sharpened again now for Louth.

Big-time.

Durcan eyeing green and red glory 

A week before the 2012 Mayo-Donegal All-Ireland final, the Donegal journalist Alan Foley met up with three Mayo men to discuss what had by then become a complex subject for the fathers of three Donegal footballers – John Durcan, Mick Murphy and Terry O’Reilly.

Durcan’s son Paul was Donegal’s goalkeeper, while Murphy’s only child, Michael, was the team captain. O’Reilly’s son, Martin, was only 19 at the time, the second youngest of Jim McGuinness’s panel.

The three retired gardaí clocked up a combined service of 101 years. Before their sons began chasing glory with Donegal, the three men had yearned to see Mayo win an All-Ireland. Durcan though, was the only one who had any experience of what that was actually like.

“When Sam Maguire came back to Foxford,” Durcan told Foley, “Pat Conway told us we had to get a feel of it.” Conway, then Mayo GAA treasurer, held the Sam Maguire in front of a 10-year old Durcan and told him to grip it tight after Mayo had defended their All-Ireland title after beating Meath in the 1951 final.

Thirteen years later, Durcan was posted as a garda to the village of Carrigans that nestles on the Donegal border with Derry. A decade later, Durcan moved to Donegal Town. By the time his son Paul first joined the Donegal panel in 2004, Durcan’s ambitions of seeing the Sam Maguire up close again had switched to hopes of getting his hands on the famous trophy through his son.

Fourteen years on from when that happened, Paul Durcan is now hoping to get a grip on the Sam Maguire again – except this time through his involvement with his father’s county.

Durcan, who is part of the Mayo backroom, first got to know Andy Moran when they were in IT Sligo, winning a Sigerson title in 2005. Moran saw up close just how good Durcan was as the Donegal man saved penalties in both the semi-final and final of that victorious Sigerson campaign.

After serving as a goalkeeping coach under Tony McEntee in Sligo, Durcan has now gone further south to the home of his father in his latest coaching capacity. On Sunday, Durcan goes up against his former Donegal manager and team-mates.

Just business. Except for the Durcan family, it’s always been about more than just business when it comes to Mayo-Donegal matches.

Antrim desperately craving a W 

If Antrim thought matters couldn’t get much worse after they lost to Tipperary two weeks ago, they did shortly afterwards when Paddy McBride and Conor Small stepped away from the panel.

McBride, who had committed to a 15th season with Antrim at the start of the year, had been named to start against Tipp but was instead brought on as a substitute for the last 20 minutes of the team’s four point defeat in Moneygall.

It was the last thing new manager Mark Doran needed after Antrim also lost their first game to Carlow, especially when the squad is again without some of the most talented footballers in the county. Last year’s captain Dermot McAleese retired. Goalkeeper Mick Byrne also stepped away while Dunloy midfielder Deaglan Smyth suffered a cruciate injury in December. Two other players who were critical to Dunloy’s first senior football success in 89 years – Keelan Molloy and Seean Elliott – opted to remain with the senior hurlers.

Player drain has been a constant issue in Antrim but Doran cast the net as wide as possible in his first few months in the job, having conversations with over 90 potential recruits. Of the players that featured two weeks ago against Tipp, six were new to the squad.

Unlucky to get relegated last year after narrow defeats to Fermanagh, Laois and Sligo, Antrim were fancied to bounce straight back up to Division 3 this year. But the pressure is really on now to do so. And the long climb for Antrim really begins now against Longford on Sunday.