Time's up?

Next Sunday will be nine weeks since Meath made their tame exit from the All-Ireland SFC series following their 1-14 to 1-17 defeat by Monaghan.

After that game in Kingspan Breffni it was confirmed that a review into Colm O'Rourke's tenure as Meath senior football manager would be conducted and that the process should take around six weeks.

Since then there has been much speculation about O'Rourke's position.

It is understood that selectors Barry Callaghan and Stephen Bray have stepped away from their roles due to work commitments, while the review committee have also studied the response from a players survey.

It is believed that the review process is now complete and that the review committee will make their recommendation to the executive of the Co Board. That executive will then assess the recommendation before putting their proposal to delegates for ratification at the next Co Board meeting which is not scheduled for another couple of weeks.

The Simonstown club man was appointed to succeed Andy McEntee on a two-year term with the option of a third year after a review, but now that third year could be in doubt.

After a disappointing championship campaign that saw Meath register just one win (a 3-19 to 3-12 victory over Longford) and finish bottom of their All-Ireland SFC group with a negative scoring difference of 28 points following drubbings by Louth and Kerry, O'Rourke was bullish about wanting to stay on.

"I'd be happy to stay with them. They are a great group of players who are very committed and dedicated. All they need is time and patience and kindness," he told the media after the loss to Monaghan.

"I think it's going to take several years to build a team here. It might take five years and I will go to the county board and asked them to give me five years as a minimum thing because I think it's going to take, certainly, two or three years.

"We will be better next year, we will be in contention for promotion from the division and by the following year we will be in contention with the big teams.

"It's a job of work because we have six from last year's under-20s and three from this year, those fellas are all going to get better and better and better."

O'Rourke also told local media after the loss to Monaghan that if there was a sense that the players no longer wanted him in the role that he would walk away.

"We're in the instant society, but there is no instant fix to Meath football, it's going to be a slow process. Anybody that thinks anything different of thinks there's a huge well of highly talented players out there that we can bring in that are going to really change the fortunes of Meath football, then they're not going to the club matches that I'm going to.

"It they (the players) tell me that they feel that there would be somebody much better suited to this, I say thank you very much lads and goodbye, it was lovely to have been part of your lives for a couple of years."

A recommendation will be made to the executive members of the Co committee this week and the picture could be a lot clearer for Colm O'Rourke and the Meath supporters by next week.