Conor Neville: Celtic Tiger blamed for fall of Meath softies, naturally

Now that the unthinkable has happened and Meath have lost to Westmeath, is it time to revisit Martin McHugh’s much ridiculed explanation for the decline of Gaelic football in the county?

Back in the storied days of the late 1980s and the 1990s, Meath were the Nick Faldo and the Steffi Graf of the GAA.

When a team, invariably the neutral’s favourite, was disintegrating before our eyes, they were the inscrutable guys on the other side of the net. Their composure and hang-tough doggedness seemed to induce this kind of collapse in opponents.