There’s no excuses now for the Royal County

“MAY you live in interesting times” is an old Chinese saying that has a certain resonance in Meath football at present.

Talk of the decision by Seamus McEnaney to bring back Graham Geraghty reached a crescendo last week, but thankfully most people have now moved on to the discussion on whether the Royals can actually outlast Kildare in Croker tomorrow.

All the available evidence points to a Kildare win. They pulled away from Meath in last year’s quarter-final to win by eight points and followed it up with a win in Newbridge in this year’s league. They have had the benefit of the win over Wicklow already in the Leinster championship and in Johnny Doyle, they have this game’s best footballer. To boot, Kildare had a reasonable league, garnering nine points out of 14 — losing only to Tyrone and Derry.