Countdown to 60th Meath - Dublin Leinster clash continues

The countdown to the 60th Leinster SFC encounter between Meath and Dublin continues this week with the Royal County playing catch-up as they trail their Metropolitan cousins with only 19 victories.

Dublin have won 32 times and on eight occasions the games ended in draws.

Looking for positives

Meath have won three of the last five Leinster finals in which they played Dublin.

In the build up to this final, Michael Newman is the top scorer on 14 points ahead of Dublin’s Bernard Brogan (1-9).

With only seven or eight players from last year’s close-run Leinster SFC final defeat by Dublin likely to start for Meath, the evidence shows that the Royal County has undergone a major transformation with another new manager in place, Meath’s sixth boss in less than a decade.

A period of stability allied to some progress is what is really required at this stage.

The potential for stability is now present with Meath supporters fed up of all the furore that engulfed Seamus McEnaney’s tenure.

With Mick O’Dowd now very firmly ensconced in the managerial hot seat, it’s fair to suggest that the Skryne man has brought that much-needed calm and progress with promotion to next year’s NFL Div 2 already achieved.

There isn’t any dancing or prancing on the sideline either, something that characterised his predecessor and something that Meath supporters would not have relished.

Since O’Dowd and his backroom team of Sean Kelly, Trevor Giles and Colm Brady took the helm, normality has returned to the team and the performances.

Even on the bad days - defeats by Monaghan and Cavan and an anonymous first-half performance in the NFL Div 3 against Sligo at Páirc Tailteann - O’Dowd remained calm.

Perhaps that game against Sligo is the one that really showed how much progress this Meath team has made in the few short months since manager number six was ratified by delegates at a Co Board meeting.

Meath turned around a 1-5 to 2-9 interval deficit to win by 1-17 to 2-12 in front of one of the smallest crowds (1,739) in Navan for an inter-county game in many years.

The victory was a pivotal one for O’Dowd and the players as they had to dig deep to find a winning formula in a hectic 35 second-half minutes.

Contrast the fortunes of the two teams since, Sligo lost to London in the Connacht SFC, were relegated and are now looking for a new manager.

Meath lost the NFL Div 3 final, but achieved promotion and are on the cusp of a real ‘rags to riches’ story next Sunday.

The smart money will be on Dublin (1/18 with the bookies) to complete a hat-trick of Leinster titles next Sunday.

Dublin would be going for nine-in-a-row except that Meath upset them with a 5-9 to 0-13 semi-final victory in 2010 on the way to the title.

Another shock is not out of the question next Sunday, but Meath supporters will have to turn out in large numbers in an effort to quell the roar that will greet Dublin.

And support is one place where Meath could find the going tough as there appears to be a certain amount of apathy out there towards the team.

With the Royal County now such a popular place to live, the influx of Dubliners to all areas, urban and rural, means that Meath could be more blue than green on Sunday morning when the players make the relatively short journey to Dublin’s home at Croke Park to tackle Goliath in his own back yard.

LAST FIVE

LEINSTER FINALS
2012 - Dublin 2-13, Meath 1-13
2001 - Meath 2-11, Dublin 0-14
1999 - Meath 1-14, Dublin 0-12
1996 - Meath 0-10, Dublin 0-8
1995 - Dublin 1-18, Meath 1-8

LEINSTER ENCOUNTERS
2013 - Dublin 2-13, Meath 1-13 (final).
2010 - Meath 5-9, Dublin 0-13 (semi-final).
2009 - Dublin 0-14, Meath 0-12 (quarter-final)
2007 - Meath 0-14, Dublin 1-11; replay - Dublin 0-16, Meath 0-12 (quarter-final).

HOW THEY GOT THERE

MEATH

Meath 1-17, Wicklow 1-12
Meath 0-18, Wexford 0-13

SCORERS
Michael Newman - 0-14
Graham Reilly - 0-8
Eamonn Wallace - 0-4
Kevin Reilly - 1-0
Stephen Bray - 0-2
Peadar Byrne - 0-2
Joe Sheridan - 0-1
Paddy Gilsenan - 0-1
Padraic Harnan - 0-1
Bryan Menton - 0-1
Brian Meade - 0-1

DUBLIN

Dublin 1-22, Westmeath 0-9
Dublin 4-16, Kildare 1-9

SCORERS

Bernard Brogan - 1-9
Paddy Andrews - 1-4
Diarmuid Connolly - 1-3
Paul Mannion - 1-2
Eoghan O’Gara - 1-2
Ciaran Kilkenny - 0-5
Stephen Cluxton - 0-4
Dean Rock - 0-4
Paul Flynn - 0-2
Cian O’Sullivan - 0-1
Jack McCaffrey - 0-1
Ger Brennan - 0-1

Meath supporters club will run a bus from Navan on Sunday - contact Tony O'Brien of Jacksie Kiernan for details.

 Conall Collier