‘Mighty relieved’ Dubs emerge unscathed

TWO managers; one with a beaming smile, the other with a face that suggests the weight of the world has parked itself on his shoulders.

As nice a guy as he is normally, Paul Caffrey just doesn’t do light-hearted after matches, win or lose, so the stony visage is his. Maybe it’s because he got a good close look this past two years at how the more expressive Tommy Lyons went from hero to less than zero. Either way, he’s giving very little away as he faces what Dave Billings refers to as ‘the vultures.’

“Very happy,” he deadpans. “I’m sure at 7/1 anybody that was on the draw there was rubbing their hands at the end. The Dublin dressing room is a mighty relieved dressing room down there.

“Playing Meath, the result is always the most important thing. Great credit to the Meath lads, people wrote them off during the week. We certainly didn’t in our dressing room.

“At spells today, they played some magnificent football and I thought Graham Geraghty was going to beat us on his own at one stage, but we hung in there.”

It was a day of plusses and minuses for Caffrey. One of the former was the robust display at left-corner back of young Stephen O’Shaughnessy, a man whose selection continued to raise some eyebrows in the capital up to yesterday morning. “He has seven National League games under his belt and he was consistent throughout the league. It’s that consistency that we’re looking to bring into this Dublin team, but there were a lot of heroes in Dublin jerseys out there today,” Caffrey reminded.

Lyons himself intimated that the winner of this game would be rewarded with the kind of momentum that could sweep a team all the way to a Leinster title, but the likelihood of getting Caffrey to say something similar is somewhere close to none.

“This game is so funny and in two weeks’ time we have Wexford and they’re already the Fermanagh of 2005. That’s our only target but that was a big test out there and I’m mighty happy.” Which brings us along nicely to Mr Boylan, all full of chuckles and good natured jokes.

This is a man evidently able to hide what must have been another crushing disappointment yesterday.

“I feel as good as anybody who has just been knocked out of a Leinster championship could feel,” said the Meath man.

“We’ve aimed for this since last October and the ambition was to try and win (Leinster). We were beaten by a very good and very resilient Dublin, as we had seen against Longford and again today.

“I feel terribly disappointed for the lads who are in there. They played their hearts out and like all teams we did things that were good, we did things that weren’t so good, but people will see that the old fighting spirit is back and we’re prepared to have a right good cut at it.

“We’re not naïve enough to think that everything is right but it’s certainly coming around. What was proved there today was that there are still some quite good young footballers coming through in the county.”

Another trip through the lottery that is the qualifiers is their lot for now. A route they’ve never travelled with the greatest belief or interest needs to be covered with far more intensity this year if Boylan’s astonishing reign of power in Meath isn’t to be challenged yet again this autumn.