Geraghty: Hoodoo was hurting players

Graham Geraghty revealed Meath’s victory in Sunday’s Leinster semi-final was more for the players than anybody else.

The Meath selector said beating Kildare after a run of five league and Championship defeats combined had become a personal goal for the group.

“I think it was because a lot of the lads in there have been hurting over the last couple of years.

“Going back 10 years, it was Meath and Dublin that were fighting out Leinster finals and there was great rivalry there but over the last four or five years it has been ourselves and Kildare.

“We have been on the receiving end of beatings from them and the win was for the players in there a lot more than anything.”

He added: “At the back of our minds (at the start of the championship), I suppose for the management team anyway, was the Kildare game.

“We would have been expected to beat those two teams (Wicklow and Carlow). The lads put in a really good performance. It was personal for a lot of the lads because they were at the receiving end of one-point defeats over the last number of years.

“This was a big push to eventually get the Kildare hoodoo off our back.”

As much as Seamus McEnaney suffered criticism for the demotion to Division 3, Geraghty wasn’t blind to the fact the panel were hit with brickbats too.

“The players got a lot of stick as well from the supporters as well as the management team. They had a meeting among themselves and said they would put it to the back of their minds and put their shoulder to the grindstone.

“It worked. It gelled the squad. Sunday was the culmination of all that hard work.”

McEnaney, Geraghty and the rest of the backroom team warned the players after the game on Sunday not to get too far ahead of themselves with a Leinster final yet to come.

“We just had a chat with them in the dressing room about that. They are going to gets pats on the back. They deserve it but there is nothing done yet. We are in a Leinster final and there is a lot of work to be done over the next couple of weeks.

“They will enjoy their win but we are back again on Tuesday night to plan for the Leinster final.”

Geraghty thrived on the big days against Dublin but he feels the rivalry has changed in recent times.

“It is a different set of players, we have played Dublin too much over the last four or five years. The rivalry probably wouldn’t be as strong as it was 10 or 15 years ago but the fans will build it up and the media will build it up but we will just be concentrating on getting ourselves ready.”

That said, he knows Meath will enjoy the underdogs status against the All-Ireland champions on July 22.

“Coming into the game Kildare would have been wary of us because we have played them over the last number of years and they have only beaten us by a point. We were 4/1 on Sunday morning going into this game and I thought those were ridiculous odds. It is great to win and it is great to be in a Leinster final again.”

Meanwhile, Meath forwards coach Trevor Giles said McEnaney’s faith in youth had to be complimented.

“In fairness to Seamus, he’s introduced a lot of new players,” said the Irish Examiner columnist. “We’d five U21s, the full-back line were all 21s, some of the half-forward were 21s, Donnacha Tobin was 21 last year and Conor Gillespie and Graham Reilly the year before so you’ve eight lads there 23 or under. Sometimes, young lads give you that bit of energy, something different. They didn’t have much bad experiences of losing to Kildare so some of those things mattered.”