Gaelic Games

Emma Duggan and Meath sticking to a winning formula

The Royal County game plan demands versatility and a high level of fitness from the squad and the players’ buy-in is total

Emma Duggan celebrates with Aoibhin Cleary after Meath’s shock win over Dublin in last year's All-Ireland SFC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho

Paul Keane
Sun Jul 31 2022 - 10:00

At this stage, Emma Duggan has developed quite the back catalogue of wonder goals.

She was only in her mid-teens in December, 2017 when she first went viral, the video of her angled strike for Dunboyne which dipped in over the head of the Kinsale goalkeeper in the All-Ireland club intermediate final widely admired.

Duggan scored 1-2 in that win, the same as team-mate Vikki Wall and while it may be a surprise that, five years later, Meath are pushing for back-to-back All-Ireland senior titles, it is no great shock that the Dunboyne duo are at the heart of the insurgence.

If you had to pick the two most important forwards in the women’s game right now, you might very well choose Duggan and Wall.

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The thing is when Meath lined out against Donegal in the recent All-Ireland semi-final, Wall, wearing number 13, started at midfield beside Orlagh Lally.

Duggan, wearing number 11, started at right half-back. They played plenty of the game back there too, suppressing all their instincts to attack for the greater good.

Ask Wall what her actual position is and she smiles for a minute before coming up with: “Loose half-forward I’d say – and I’d use the term loosely!”

Put the same question to Duggan and she isn’t fully sure how to answer either, despite carrying the reputation as a prolific inside threat.

“I’d just say free rein to be honest with you, it’s literally a bit of everything,” said Duggan.

You could ask the same question of Emma Troy, nominated for the ladies Footballer of the Year award in 2021, like Duggan and Wall.

She wore No 2 last year but scored two terrific points in the final defeat of Dublin. This season, she’s got No 6 on her back but still possesses that licence to roam and to thrill.

Stacey Grimes is nominally a full-forward but her blocks in far deeper positions have provided some of the standout moments of Meath’s run to another final. Megan Thynne, wearing number 10, must have scorch marks on her back from the smoke coming out her GPS unit.

It’s an all-action, ultra-intensive approach that has taken Meath’s opponents by surprise though you wonder if the counter-attacking style didn’t take the players themselves by surprise too?

“It takes a flip of your mindset,” admitted Duggan. “I wasn’t actually involved when the management first came in. So when I was brought in I was just of the mindset, whatever is said goes, I’ll do it.

“But look, we completely trust the lads. We back them 100% and look at where they’ve gotten us to at this stage, I think they’re doing something right. You’d be a bit of a fool not to listen to them.”

Back to the goals. Duggan has been scoring them for fun since she was a kid in Dunboyne, her ability to strike solidly off left and right foot, combined with her darting elusive movements, marking her out as something special from a young age.

Six minutes into last year’s All-Ireland final, a game that nobody expected Meath to win as Dublin chased the five-in-a-row, she hit another of those worldies, lobbing goalkeeper Ciara Trant.

But did she mean it?

“I thought I’d left that question behind!” smiled the DCU student who had only just complete her Leaving Cert at the time of the strike.

“I did mean it at the time. People are either going to believe you or they’re not, as long as I know and my teammates know.”

It’s not all that important of course, whether she meant it or not. The more substantial point is that when Meath get their press on, it’s mightily difficult for teams to break out through it. It’s a big part of Meath’s overall tactics, that high press, as Donegal found to their cost in the second half of the semi-final.

“The kick-out in the ladies game is huge, if you can get a turnover there, you give yourself a massive advantage,” said Duggan. “It’s something we’ve worked on in the last three or four years. Mark Brennan does a lot of hard work on it with us. It’s definitely something we’re going to push on with for the final.”

The problem with playing a game like that, pressing up high on the kick-outs, dropping back in huge numbers when the other team eventually breaks clear of the press, and then launching your own counter-attacks, requires a high level of fitness and conditioning.

Meath attributed much of their strong form in 2021 and eventual All-Ireland breakthrough to the long Covid lay-off earlier in the year, allowing them to get ultra fit.

“We were only talking about that there recently, it was outrageous,” said Duggan of the punishing lockdown programmes that players undertook. “To play our game you have to be in good condition. If not, you’re going to be found out very quickly.”

Still, it hasn’t exactly been plain sailing this year.

Duggan has had to conjure more magical moments in the dying moments of both the All-Ireland series games against Galway and Donegal to get Meath to this stage.

And as much as manager Eamonn Murray downplayed their Leinster final defeat to Dublin – “ah it was nothing to us, it didn’t really mean that much to us” – it can’t have fostered much confidence, particularly as they scored just one point in the first half.

“We’ve had to learn that things mightn’t go right for you all the time,” said Duggan. “Teams are looking closely at us now. We can’t be so hard on ourselves, we can’t be constantly chasing perfection.

“We just have to be better than the opposition on the day and that comes down to just backing your system, backing how you play, that it’ll get you over the line. We’ve had massive success with it so why would we change it? We just have to be better at doing it.”

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