Ciarán Caulfield: One win can spark Meath's All-Ireland campaign into life

Meath's Ciaran Caulfield. Picture: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho

Ciarán Caulfield is clinging to the belief that one win could change Meath's Championship campaign and finally ignite them.

The Royals will head to Derry for tomorrow evening's All-Ireland SFC Round 2B tie knowing that it's a win or bust scenario having already lost to Cork.

If the bookies' prediction of a home win for Derry holds good, then Meath would exit the Championship with three losses from three games.

It doesn't help that the Division 2 champions will be without playmaker and 2025 All-Star nominee Ruairí Kinsella due to a season-ending knee injury.

Wing-back Caulfield, installed as vice-captain last year, is more optimistic and believes that losing to Cork last time out was more down to game management than any system failure.

"One win can change a lot," said the Trim man. "If you can get that bit of momentum from a bit of a bounce off a win, there's nothing to say you can't push on then for the rest of the summer.

"If we'd gone out (against Cork) and all the wheels came off the wagon, it would probably be a bit more of a time for concern. But I don't think that's been the case. It's just probably trying to tweak a few small things.

"But I think we're still seeing that the stuff we're working on in training is coming out on game days. It's just probably about controlling the game a little more and getting over the line, which is something we've worked on. No, I think the confidence is still there."

The Meath-Cork game was delicately poised when Cork lost Colm O'Callaghan to a red card with 20 minutes to go. 

But instead of capitalising, 2025 All-Ireland semi-finalists Meath slipped to a three-point defeat. 

On the same day, in Killarney, Donegal took over entirely against Kerry following the half-time dismissal of Kerry's Micheál Burns.

"Coming down the stretch, we weren't too happy as players with how we handled that," acknowledged Caulfield, whose first half goal had helped Meath to lead by 1-16 to 0-11 at half time. "We have to take ownership for that."

Meath coughed up 0-30 in all against Cork, having already conceded 4-18 against Westmeath in their Leinster championship game. It's the obvious downside for a group so committed to attack and adventurous play.

"We like to think we try to play a nice brand of football," said Caulfield. "You're probably trying to find that balance between your attack and your defence. They're probably the small things that we've been working on, how you can find that balance between the two, attacking in the way we do but also trying not to make yourself too open at the back.

"And obviously with the new rules it can be tough to keep teams to the scores that you used to be able to, maybe under the 20-point mark."

Boss Brennan will have to make at least one change in attack, for Kinsella. 

Jack O'Connor seems the obvious replacement though Aaron Lynch, Jack Flynn or Cian McBride could all come into the reckoning with some positional tweaking.

At the back, Brennan has been slow to change things, only deviating on three occasions since the start of the League from the same back seven. And on those three occasions, it was a single change he made.

"It's not like we're not getting pushed in training," said Caulfield. "Yeah, it's been pretty much the same lads for the last while but we are being constantly pushed in training. And we've seen this year there's been a few lads making their debuts, in the League and what not. 

"The last day, against Cork, Charlie O'Connor made his Championship debut in midfield. So there are lads there pushing from behind. That's keeping us on our toes."

Meath defeated Derry when the sides met in Round 1 of the National League, at Croke Park.

"You probably can't look too much into that, it was a wet night in January," said Caulfield, who captained DCU to the 2025 Sigerson Cup title. "They improved as the League went on and they've been around the top table for the last couple of years. They have lots of threats all over the pitch."