Meath shouldn’t get too carried away
I have to admit I did leap out of my seat after a couple of Meath’s second-half goals. I certainly did not anticipate an 11 point winning margin for my own county. Yes, they certainly were worth their win, but the margin was flattering.
The scores were level after a first half in which I thought Dublin had looked slightly the better team. Lots of little things went Meath’s way. Their first goal came as a result of Barry Cahill, under no pressure, hopping the ball twice and conceding a free. The second came directly from a turnover after Conal Keaney was clearly fouled while attempting a point. Then, with Meath leading by three points, Paul Flynn ran right through the Meath defence only to see his goal attempt hit the inside of the post. A goal for Dublin there and you had a different match. After the third Meath goal, Bernard Brogan was through on goal but the referee chose not to give him the advantage. And for the last two Meath goals, the long, high ball broke beautifully for the Meath forwards.
In fairness to Meath, they were very clinical with their goal chances, especially Stephen Bray. His underage mentor, Paddy O’Brien, would have been proud of his display. Paddy sadly passed away on Saturday and had coached all the kids in the Navan O’Mahonys club for the last 60 years, including my own father when he was a kid.
You cannot underestimate what yesterday’s victory will do for this Meath team’s confidence. In Meath for the last 30 years, you are only rated as a footballer if you have played well in a big Championship victory over Dublin, and prior to yesterday, none of the starting players had managed this. Meath have five scoring forwards and any two of them seem to play very well on most days. The non-scoring one, Seamus Kenny, will win lots of breaking ball, will help back in his defence and link the play. Seamus came on to the panel in 2001 and has no Leinster medal to show despite a lot of good performances both in spring and summer.
Meath have an astute manager in Eamon O’Brien who served for seven years as a selector under Sean Boylan. Eamon will not get carried away by the margin of yesterday’s victory. An important part of this team’s development was Colm Brady’s role as team trainer last year. Apart from getting the team fit enough to play in Croke Park, he got Joe Sheridan fit enough to play in Croke Park and be as effective there as he used to be on smaller pitches. Joe must take some of that credit himself too and now is a real leader of the team.
Shane O’Rourke continues his comeback and has improved with every game. He troubled Rory O’Carroll yesterday and he is a player I rate highly. At 6 foot 5 inches, a dry ball suits Shane better than a wet one. He played his best senior match for Meath yesterday, a bit like his father who saved some of his best games for Dublin.
Meath will be concerned about their midfield. The kickouts were shared equally in the first half but amazingly when Meath were scoring three of their second half goals, they were being cleaned out at midfield and won about six kickouts to Dublin’s sixteen in the second half. They will need a fully fit Nigel Crawford playing at the level that he did against Offaly in the first round if they are to have ambitions of beating a Kerry, Tyrone or even Louth in the Leinster final.
I thought after the Offaly match that Meath were about eighth or ninth in the national football rankings. This has moved them up to about sixth. But they still have no silverware to show. Next up they have a very slippery Leinster final against neighbours Louth. Invariably, big victories are followed by flat performances.
Dublin can rightly point out to some things not going their way in the second half and are not 11 points inferior to Meath. Dublin spent the National League getting 12 men behind the ball. Since the Wexford game, Dublin seemed to have ditched that system and yesterday lined out in a traditional formation. Meath then go and get five goals and four of these were scored in lots of space. For three years now, they have lost heavily to Tyrone, Kerry and Meath in big games in Croke Park. To lose by such a margin will further dent fragile confidence.
Certainly it was a boost for the Meath players to be facing a Dublin team without Ciaran Whelan and Shane Ryan and the way recent results have gone between the two counties, Meath may enjoy victory over Dublin in the next few years. They probably are not All-Ireland contenders for the next couple of years and maybe Pat Gilroy will use the qualifiers to blood Cian O’Sullivan, Kevin McMenamin and some of their U21 players. I have seen at first hand – being involved with various underage Meath teams – that Dublin have plenty of good young players coming through who are used to winning. If they are blooded properly, Dublin won’t be too far away in the near future.
* I thought the Croke Park pitch looked splendid yesterday. Perhaps a problem facing the GAA will be trying to hold on to their ground staff, especially when you see the problems they have in places like Wembley with their pitch. Though maybe that’s not quite England’s biggest problem at the moment!
