Tailteann Cup Final Preview: O'Connor aiming to help Meath sustain winning ways

Jack O'Connor knows all about the silences that can dominate a dressingrooms. He knows about the heavy weight of disappointment that can prevade such places especially after a championship defeat; the sour taste it can leave. The empty feeling.

He was part of such a scenario in late April when on a murky, dirty day in O'Connor Park, Tullamore Meath lost out to Offaly, 1-11 to 0-10. It wasn't supposed to be like that. Meath had a new-looking young side and while nobody was pitching them as Sam Maguire winners there was real hope, even expectation, they would get to a Leinster final and another joust with Dublin.

Such plans went west in the fine, sumptuos surroundings of O'Connor Park - hence the air of gloom and doom that was evident in the Meath camp. That day players silently, morosely filed out of the dressingroom, fleeing it like it was on fire, while in the home locker room across the way the whoops and cries and songs of the victorious Faithful permeated the air. The sounds must have been like daggers of the mind to the vanquished players as they headed to their bus out back - and among them was Jack O'Connor.

The 22-year-old Currahaman - his birthday is in September - admits that defeat was a hard one get over, to cast aside, but get over it he, and his colleagues, had to - and quickly. The Tailteann Cup was waiting up the road and with it a chance for redemption. Sure enough training resumed and the bandwagon got rolling again.

"We had no choice but to embrace the Tailteann Cup, it was championship football we were going to get so we had to take it with both hands which, I feel, we have. It was a massive opportunity to get some silverware which we are still chasing." he says.

The games came thick and tough - Tipperary, Waterford, Down, Wexford, Antrim. Meath won them all. Now here they are with an All-Ireland final of sorts to play before a big crowd in Croke Park and the TV cameras. The memory of sickening silence experienced in Tullamore is fast receding into the misty past.

Not, he readily admits, that the victories chalked up along the way were done seamlessly, without much effort. Far from it. To illustrate his point he refers to games against Tipperary and Waterford as rugged clashes with victories that had to be hewn out of rock. They were far from the strolls some had predicted.

In Fraher Field in Dungarvan, for example, the character of this newly created, ever evolving Meath team was severly road tested. In the first-half of that tie Waterford were the better team. It took a much improved second moiety display from Meath to get them out of jail.

"I don't know what happened, I guess the travelling down maybe put us off because we were sluggish and sloppy. Thankfully we got over the line at the end but we really needed a good second-half to win that game."

It was all part of the learning process he concedes. There were more lessons to be absorbed in the laboured victory over Down - and in the semi-final against Antrim. Meath, he admits, were very impressive in the third quarter of that game. Then they lost the initiative, started to burn oil, lose their sparkle.

"We tried to keep the tempo going but we showed a lack of ruthlessness, we really had opportunities to kill the game off, didn't take them and Antrim took full advantage. We were lucky we got away with it at the end. We know that if the same happens against Down we won't get the same outcome."

O'Connor, who works as an electrician, only last year started to nail down a regular place with Meath. Since then he has emerged as a player of real quality with pace to burn. This will be, he reckons, his third time to play in Croke Park (assuming, which you have to do, he will feature) and he knows how it can be a place to inspire. Also, he knows, it's a place that can overwhelm your senses and leave you diminished - if you let it. The trick is not to let it.

"This is my third outing to play there and it's a cool place to be. I've been there also as a supporter many times but it's nice to be out there on the pitch, it can be a nervy place when you are out there looking up at the stands, especially if there is a decent crowd in place, then it can be a bit daunting, you just have to shut all that out."

O'Connor is one of three Curraha men on the panel (James McEntee, Diarmuid Moriarty the others). It's a hefty contingent for a small rural, if senior club. After all, he points out, back in 2014 Curraha were a junior outfit and struggling at that level. He knowns how things in life and football can change. Quickly. He knows that the silence he and his colleagues endured in Tullamore in April can be replaced by the cries of delight on Saturday. That's a prospect, you suspect, that's driving him on. And on.