Leinster SFC Quarter-final: Seán Moran talks to Trevor Giles, now an old hand in a Meath side facing into their latest championship season as an unknown quantity, even to themselves

It's his 10th season and he recognises this stage in the cycle. Trevor Giles arrived on the Meath panel as part of the new wave of under-age talent breaking in the county. The panel was well stocked with All-Ireland and league medallists and there was an apparently seamless continuity about the process.

Nothing lasts forever and although Giles and his contemporaries now represent experience and achievement, there are no guarantees about the new intake.

Back then Seán Boylan had two minor and one under-21 All-Ireland-winning teams at his disposal. That tributary has well dried up and that has to inform all the brave talk of the Meath manager being able to conjure senior All-Irelands out of nothing.

Giles is sanguine, however, in his usual cautious manner and invokes the example of 1996 when, within a year of Leinster final humiliation by Dublin, Boylan was back with a new team winning the All-Ireland. The parallels are eagerly illustrated.

"Seán was challenged last year for the manager's job and got a fairly close run. That happened before in 1995 after we were beaten by Dublin by 10 points. There was a lot of dissatisfaction then and you can't get rid of the team so you try and get rid of the management. Going by that we could be going places this year.

"Of course it's not always a good thing if your manager's getting a close run and people don't think you're going to win an All-Ireland."

The response is typical of his equilibrium. Asked are Dublin the team to beat this year, he shapes up dangerously: "Well a lot of people would say that ..." But just as the faint scepticism warns of some killer ball about to be sent curling in over 50 metres, he opts for the hand-pass: "... and a lot of people are probably right."

For someone as decorated as he is - two senior All-Irelands, Footballer of the Year and a clutch of All Stars, top International Rules player - there is always concern at any indication that personal or team performance levels are fading. Last year after a weird six-year sequence, which saw Meath, Kerry and Galway spliced together in a looped tape of All-Ireland wins, there was a definite feeling that Meath were losing a beat on the others. Dublin re-emerged in Leinster and Donegal beat them in the qualifiers.

"We probably all dropped our standards a bit," he says. "It was one of only two years we didn't get to a provincial final at least in all my years playing with Meath. But we didn't do a whole lot and lost ground on the top teams. We're middle of the road now so it will be interesting to see if we can get back into the top bracket.

"We've been in this position before where we kind of don't know where we are, sort of up and down. We're in danger of slipping out and would be well out of the betting for the All-Ireland. People say that maybe we might win a Leinster because Leinster isn't that strong at the moment. But we still have a lot of experience."

Boylan's extraordinary ability to revive, refresh and improvise has kept Meath a force in the game for most of his 22 years in charge. Part of his genius has been the selection of lieutenants. Colm Brady played from 1990 and won an All-Ireland in 1996 just before a knee injury wound up his career. He became head coach of the Leinster Council and has brought innovation to Meath.

"Colm's come in and done a lot of good work," says Giles, "and Seán's probably taken more of a back seat. We've done things this year we've never done before."

It will surprise more than a few to learn that these novelties include items as unremarkable as diet supervision and bleep tests, protocols surely taken for granted in virtually all county panels. Given that league victories have hardly ever been a happy precedent for Meath, it was no surprise that the county didn't raise much dust in the spring. For Giles, though, it served its purpose.

"We did all right in the league although we were well beaten in our first two games. We were playing teams who had started training well before Christmas whereas we just got back in January so we were never going to be able to compete in the first couple of rounds. But we beat Kildare, Mayo and Sligo - three reasonable teams - so we'd be quite happy.

"There were five or six players who will feature in the championship and that's been good for us because we've had pretty much the same team for the last six or seven years and everyone knows us very well."

There has been a further shake-up in Meath's approach to the championship that starts for them tomorrow with a fifth match against Westmeath in three seasons. Normally the training camp would have been in full swing for weeks but not this year. "We have played four rounds of the club championship," says Giles. "Preparation has been different. We'd normally have played a lot more challenge matches and had more time together. We've only really had two weeks together and a lot of club matches. Then there was a week training in Portugal, which was badly needed, and we got a lot of work done."

He knows the talk that another lukewarm championship could spell the end of Boylan's era - or at least the manager's desire to continue. But Giles also knows that more than one era would be on the line.

"If it doesn't go well I wouldn't blame him. I think it would just mean we're not good enough anymore.

"Preparations have been good. Whether they're good enough or we're burned out or haven't the nerve any more, you'll see that for yourselves."