Meath showing signs of life ahead of stern Tyrone test

Saturday’s gathering of North and South’s landed gentry in Navan will rekindle memories of all sorts. Eleven years have passed since Meath and Tyrone met in an All-Ireland quarter-final in which Graham Geraghty fired 1-2 for Meath in a 1-13 to 2-08 win that brought the Royals back to an All-Ireland semi-final.

Conventional wisdom interpreted the result as further assurance that Tyrone’s marauding years were over. But no: a year later, against all odds, Mickey Harte got the band back together and they played out – through an epic qualifying run– a third All-Ireland title of the decade. Both counties would settle for a similar outcome on Saturday, but the stark reality is that one of the big football names will be gone from the championship startlingly early.

But while Tyrone remain one of the most closely scrutinised teams in Gaelic football, Meath have kind of been washed away in the blue tidal wave of Dublin success. The shorthand story on Meath is that a glorious period – granite-tough teams and a shamanistic manager in Seán Boylan – have disappeared for good.

But as current manager Andy McEntee has emphasised, the years preceding Boylan’s extended golden period were fraught with underachievement and setback: they went from 1970 to 1986 without a Leinster title. Meath’s two-point loss to Longford was at once a historic moment in the provincial championship and a grim reminder for Meath followers of where they rank in the pecking order right now. For McEntee, perseverance was always going to be a key trait when he took the job. “Things have improved dramatically in Meath in the last number of years but it is not going to happen overnight. But I definitely think the structures are in place to start that now. The bigger the volume of good players you have in a county, the better chance you have of doing something.”

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Jamie Queeney was a young panellist on the Meath senior squad in that 2007 All-Ireland final. He belonged to a generation of Meath children who blithely assumed that Leinster finals were a steady part of the childhood ritual in that part of the country. Now he is the County Games manager in Meath, tasked with overseeing the coaching officers across the country. When he started the role in 2012, Meath had four coaches. Now, they have 17.

All of the bigger clubs, such as Ratoath and Ashbourne, have dedicated coaching officers. Meath fell under the auspices of the Leinster project, focusing on ensuring that counties bordering Dublin had adequate coaching resources. Sean Kelly, the former Meath player and senior selector, has been the county’s director of football coaching for the past two years.

“It is early days,” Queeney says of the emphasis on youth coaching. “One of the main driving forces in Dublin is the coaches, and they obviously have super coaches up there. But one of the things they did about 15 years ago was the go-games initiative with noncompetitive football for under eights and tens. We started a lot of those initiatives here around 2012 and put our academies in place too and I think we are starting to see that the standard of club player is beginning to improve in general. And you notice 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds that are coming through That is the opinion around the place but time will tell if that translates to success for the county in later years.”

Four minor titles

Dublin have won four Leinster minor titles (but just one All-Ireland, in 2012) since their breakout senior All-Ireland in 2011. Meath’s last minor championship was in 2008. Queeney acknowledges that in terms of bare trophies, it is hard to assess the return on the work going on across the county. But he feels that GAA people have begun to notice the returns among the younger players coming through and are satisfied that the county is clawing its way back to competitiveness.

“I think there was worry about three or four years ago. But that was short-lived because it was when everyone got together to do something about it. Being realistic, we are where we are at senior level. Nobody is saying we should be higher or lower: we are at that division two standard and just finding it difficult to break into the top.

“I don’t think people are worried because we can see a group of players coming through and there is more optimism. People felt that maybe we took our eye off the ball in Meath and felt we’d be at the top because of tradition and heritage. But when you sit down and crunch the numbers you can see that the underage teams hadn’t been producing the players to step through to senior level.”

Queeney’s Meath career seemed finished in 2012 when he was let go at the end of the season. Then he was recalled by Mick O’Dowd but cut for the championship. He was brought in again in 2015 but suffered a few injury setbacks: his final season just didn’t work out. He played for Meath during a period when the county was in flux and trying to come up with a formula comparable to the Boylan years, with a cast of high-calibre managers going through a revolving door season after season. The last real high point was the controversial Leinster championship win over Louth in 2010. It means there is a generation of under-10s coming through now with no concept that the Meath jersey was arguably the most feared in Gaelic games – for every reason you could care to think of.

“It is the old cliche: they want to enjoy what they are doing. Obviously they see successful teams: Leinster rugby or Dublin. Yeah, it was a lot easier for me to want to play for Meath watching the likes of Trevor Giles and Graham Geraghty. But the young lads now would look at Cillian O’Sullivan or Donal Lenihan the same way. They are still wearing the Meath jersey and I still think there is that pride out there when they see the senior team. There is no doubt: it was easier then.”

Something stirs

But there are signs. Meath under-20s, managed by Queeney’s former teammate Brian Farrell, ran in six goals against Wicklow before edging out Kildare in the first two games of their campaign. Geraghty sounded a clarion call by coming out and advising against dismissing Meath’s chances and welcoming what was a dauntingly tough qualifying draw against Mickey Harte’s team. In a peculiar way, it gives Meath the one thing they have been clambering after through the frustrations of being locked into division two: a tilt against one of the big teams out there. Tyrone are perceived as being vulnerable and injury-plagued but are bound to be smarting after their narrow Ulster championship defeat to Monaghan. And after everything, the Royal county is still football mad.

“Being realistic, Tyrone will be hot favourites,” Queeney allows.

“There isn’t excitement but maybe a little bit of quiet confidence. I think they will put in a performance. Whether they get a win, I don’t know.”

Either way, across Meath, the ground work goes on.