GAELIC GAMES:What genetic quirk mutates the DNA of Meath teams? Or Dublin teams for that matter. Take yesterday. Second half. The Hill a soggy but anxious shade of blue. Their heroes are five points up on a Meath side who are still learning how to shave. Somehow you know that Dublin are exactly where Meath want them to be.
Dublin's narcolepsy. Meath's stoic stubbornness. It ended in a draw. The storyline gets picked up on Sunday fortnight, at the same venue. There were some seats left empty in Croke Park yesterday, a little breathing room visible on the Hill.
That's scarcely likely to happen again.
Dublin football on some subliminal level is still haunted by the face of Kevin Foley. It's 16 years ago now since Meath, on the cusp of death after a grand opera spread over four afternoons, worked the ball the length of the field with nobody taking a duff option anywhere. And Foley slotted it home, as was once said of a Jimmy Greaves goal, with the soft click of the door of a Rolls Royce as it closes.
Under the Hill's despairing gaze Foley added the last line to a lyric essay in doing the right thing under pressure. And Foley just turned away, his face that of a man going to fetch another icy box of cod having just routinely filleted his thousandth fish of the morning.
It was a moment that summed up an entire county's stoic and enduring philosophy of football and a moment reprised yesterday as young Cian Ward stood on the sideline under the Cusack Stand in the 70th minute of a fraught game. He was about 14 yards out and he had the ball and the immediate fate of Meath football in his hands. He steered it over the bar as blithely as a kid practising in Dalgan on a sunny evening when the worst distraction might be midgets in the air and the thought of dinner.
"He's something else, all right," said Anthony Moyles of the young substitute. "He does that all the time in training. I was actually thinking one of us should have made a little bit of run for him but he wouldn't have noticed anyway."
It was an ending which Meath just about deserved on the run of play and felt entitled to on the run of decisions through the game. Dublin coach Paul "Pillar" Caffrey noted afterwards television would show the game's three key decisions to have been correct. Meath might have hoped, however, that between Graham Geraghty's disallowed goal, his second-half penalty claim and the contention of square ball surrounding Dublin's only goal, they might have caught a break somewhere.
Dublin will be inclined to console themselves firstly with the thought that they didn't get beaten and secondly, yesterday was their first chance to blow the cobwebs of winter away. When they played well, they played very well. Once again it was the ordinariness of what came in between which haunted them.
Dublin scored the first five points of the game, necklacing passes together and pinning Meath into their own half of the field, apart from one excursion which was dealt with confidently by debutant full back Ross McConnell. So happy and chirpy were the Dubs that their fifth point came off the boot of Shane Ryan. They'd said it couldn't be done! Ryan celebrated his score with a fist towards the heavens.
By that stage five points was the minimum width there should have been between the sides. Two Mossy Quinn '45s in succession had dropped into the Meath square causing the sort of havoc that a fox might cause if it parachuted into a chicken farm.
The first ball was saved after Alan Brogan caught it with a fist. The second slipped off Anthony Moyles' fingers, requiring a good save from Brendan Murphy.
There have been doubts about this Meath team over the past couple of seasons. Their supporters in the Hogan Stand rubbed their chins with rabbinical earnestness and braced themselves.
Meath clawed their way back though. Joe Sheridan scored a point. Geraghty had a wonderful goal disallowed for a push on McConnell. The goal was wiped out but the sense of Dublin's vulnerability lingered with Meath. All three of the full-forward line scored within a four-minute period after Sheridan's opener. They were back to within a point when Dublin slugged them in the gut. A long ball from Conal Keaney was pushed in by Brogan. Square ball? Who knew? Was there a shadowy figure on the grassy knoll as Kennedy was shot?
"We didn't start great," said Geraghty afterwards, "we clawed our way back in, though. The goal just before half-time was a sucker-punch but we composed ourselves at half-time and came out fighting. They got points straight after half-time, though."
They did and it was from that unpromising place with one knee on the canvas that Meath launched themselves back into the bout. The introduction of Ward 12 minutes into the second half brought instant reward. He slotted a free and then a superb '45 on his way to running up five points from dead balls.
Dublin looked to have filched it at the death when Ryan attracted three defenders to himself before spilling the ball to Collie Moran whose shot hit the post and dropped in for a point. Meath were knocked down. They got up again.
"Well we weren't beaten so we have to temper the disappointment" said Caffrey. "It was a fantastic game in terms of what both teams brought to the table. It may be the start of a renewed rivalry between Dublin and Meath."
No complaints about that.
