Colm O'Rourke: 'I firmly believe that we should be in the top four or five every year'

New Royals manager sets lofty goals as he plots a course to take county back to the heights he reached as a player

BACK TO GLORY DAYS: Meath's Colm O'Rourke in action against Cork's Niall Cahalane. All-Ireland Football Final, Meath v Cork, Croke Park, Dublin. Pic: Ray McManus/SPORTSFILE

It was a bold opening play by Colm O'Rourke, either a psychological masterstroke or a giant stick which will in time be used to beat the new Meath manager with.

"I would regard that we will have failed if we don't beat Dublin," stated O'Rourke immediately after his surprise appointment back in July.

Almost three months on, O'Rourke was at Pairc Tailteann on Thursday evening for the launch of the new Dioralyte Meath Regional Championship.

The competition will run throughout October and November on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in Dunganny and will effectively be used as a tool for identifying talent for the 2023 Meath panel.

Players and coaches from the eight different regional teams attended Thursday's draw and were in the palm of O'Rourke's hand as he outlined his ambitions and joked about the legendary thickness of 'north Meath men'.

Starting from scratch with a blank slate and talking about reeling in Dublin, who have consistently toyed with and thumped Meath for well over a decade, within a matter of months, is a serious business though.

For O'Rourke, it remains a clear ambition that he refuses to shy away from.

"If we're not making progress next year, I'd be very disappointed," he said. "Progress is competing with Dublin, putting ourselves in a position to win a Leinster Championship, putting ourselves in line for promotion from Division 2. I'm going to set the bar high. That's what I call progress.

"I firmly believe it and I've said it always that there are as good footballers in Meath as in any county. Maybe we haven't the individual stars of some others but we have incredible talent in the county. We have great clubs, we have wonderful people running clubs. I think we'll have enthusiasm, I think we'll have everything so it's up to us to try to harness that.

"I'm not going to say that we're superior to anybody else but I feel that a Meath man is the equal of anybody in the country," said O'Rourke. "Meath footballers are the equal of everybody and I don't think we should have any inferiority complex."

Under Sean Boylan, who has been invited to address the team whenever he wishes and to be an active member of the backroom, O'Rourke won All-Irelands in 1987 and 1988. When he came off the bench after illness in the 1991 decider, and whipped up a storm in the closing minutes against Down, he almost engineered another success. Following his retirement, Meath claimed the Sam Maguire Cup again in 1996 and 1999 and contested the 2001 final. Since then, they have been largely irrelevant at the elite end of the game.

"I really firmly believe that Meath should be in the top four or five counties in Ireland, every year," claimed O'Rourke. "Because of our population, our good structures. I don't know what has gone wrong that we have slipped so far down. I'm just hoping that there is this wonderful burst of enthusiasm that will lift us fairly quickly."

O'Rourke was the popular appointment craved by supporters that never materialised until last July when he brought forward his retirement from his day job as a principal with St Pat's in Navan and opted to take the plunge.

"I've been overwhelmed," said O'Rourke of the public response. "I couldn't believe it. I always thought that being on television and things like that, that nobody would pass much remarks on this. I've just been completely overwhelmed for the last...since the thing was announced, but particularly the first few weeks. The amount of people that just came up to me on the street, or wrote to me or text me or rang me. It was just much bigger...I didn't think the Meath job was that big a thing but it brought home to me how important it is to Meath GAA people."