Leinster SFC quarter-final
Dublin v Meath (SUNDAY, 4:30pm, Croke Park)
We like to romanticise in this game, but the 1990′s are 30 years ago. The montages of the mind’s eye have Meathmen running up the sand dunes and Seán Boylan barking like an Alsatian on steroids.
In the midst of memory too is the final of ‘96. Mayo versus Meath, a game that started as a football match and transpired into a royal rumble.
Of course Meath won that duel. Everyone can appreciate hard and fair. Everyone knows the best teams tread the line. People often don’t like when the line is crossed, but that’s sport.
Meath teams of old were winners. It was bred into them.
Meath teams more recently have been losers. They’ve been afraid of Dublin.
If you’re more of a number cruncher, here it is. Black and white:
2022: Dublin 1-27 1-13 Meath
2021: Dublin 2-16 1-13 Meath
2020: Dublin 3-21 0-09 Meath
2019: Dublin 1-17 0-04 Meath
2016: Dublin 0-21 0-11 Meath
Average scoreline? Dublin 1-20 0-10.
Average winning margin? 13 points.
Meath? Average.
The closest fixture had a six-point winning margin for The Dubs. And that doesn’t even tell the full story, with Dublin 11 up and cruising at half-time.
You do like to think this is the beginning of a new era of Meath football though. This time last year a fairly average Division 2 campaign meant Sam Maguire football looked unlikely.
Perhaps it was the old guard, but many were up on their high horses, laughing down at the prospect of playing second fiddle in the summer.
To the rest of us, the prospect of Meath being too good for Tailteann Cup football was implausible, borderline laughable based on the results above alone.
But then they won the thing. They beat Down, not once, but twice. They got their team holiday. They look like they’re actually enjoying their football, which seems to be an accomplishment rather than the foundation of today’s intercounty game by times.
The likes of Mathew Costello has established himself as a real goal scoring threat. Shane Walsh consistently shows why he may not always be a name subject to correction. He’s actually the most dangerous Shane Walsh in the country right now.
Jordan Morris is back and firing, while Eoghan Frayne has continued the winter form he showed with Maynooth University, scoring 1-5 against Longford.
The exuberance of youth. The attitude is changing, and there’s nothing that beats actually winning football matches, regardless of the level. We saw that with Waterford last week.
Meath will be heartened too by the lesser names in the Dublin starting XV, such as Killian McGinnis of Skerries.
Whether Stephen Cluxton actually goes on to sit on the bench is another matter.
Regardless, Dublin won’t be too worried about Meath. The handicap is 12 points.
They’ve won nine All-Irelands since The Royals last tasted victory in this fixture. There’s men turning in their grave at that very sentence.
So, is this a new Meath?
Well apparently Seán Boylan is back in camp under Colm O’Rourke. Maybe some tough love around the sand dunes of Bettystown is just what the doctor ordered.
It’s highly unlikely that Meath win this fixture, but they need to show some fire, some hunger, some belief. They need to ruffle feathers, tread the line, maybe even cross it.
Without a proper Dublin v Meath derby, the Leinster Championship will never be “alive and kicking” again.
Laois v Offaly (SATURDAY, Laois Hire O’Moore Park, 7pm)
It feels as though these two sides have always been fairly well matched in recent times. A dismal Division 3 campaign saw Offaly just about survive. A brilliant league for Laois sees them promoted to the same Division.
It’s all about perspective. We saw last weekend how little the league matters come Championship. Westmeath for example lost to Sligo in Round 7, beat Down in the league final and then lost to Wicklow.
For that reason you have to give Offaly a good shout in what looks a fairly 50/50 game. A derby ups the stakes all the more.
Now managed by Declan Kelly, the Faithful continue to try and reap the rewards of an U20 All-Ireland title just three years ago.
Skipper Lee Pearson is one of those medallists. And despite the rise of the likes of Cormac Bryant and Cormac Egan, he claims senior football “is a different ball game altogether.”
Speaking to RTÉ, he said:
“We want to be winning these games in Leinster. Each game is like a final for us and the more we get the better.
“Last year we took great pride in getting to a semi-final and we would like to have got past Louth, but all our eyes are on Laois now this Saturday in what will be a massive game before a big crowd in Portlaoise.
It’s time for this team to kick on now and this is a massive test.”
It is worth remembering Offaly’s win over Meath just a year ago. The Royals likely expected Dublin to dump them into the Tailteann Cup, but Offaly nipped in there first.
Having established a nine-point half-time lead, Michael Duignan waxed lyrical about “the old Offaly”.
It was a hyper emotional occasion, just days after the tragic passing of manager Liam Kearns. Duignan spoke with passion in the aftermath:
“It was a game he felt we could win. I’m just glad the players went out and got the win for him; it was a fitting way for them to honour Liam, and to show that they could deliver a performance the county has been craving.”
Needless to say Meath great Joe Sheridan wasn’t so impressed on Twitter/X:
“That’s definitely the worst half of football I’ve ever witnessed. No shape, no structure, no hunger.”
In the end, Louth were lucky to get over the Faithful in the Leinster semi, a game that went to extra time.
So what of 2024? As unrelated as league and championship may be, Offaly still showed signs last year with four wins from seven, compared to just two this time around.
Anton Sullivan is a huge injury blow, with experience at a premium in a young side. Kelly’s charges are also without Cian Farrell and Nigel Dunne, leaving options at a premium in the forward line.
Factor that in alongside Justin McNulty’s rejuvenated Laois and Offaly head into this one as underdogs. There is of course the added incentive of a home crowd thrown in there for the O’Moore men.
Laois hardly blinked on their way to a Division 4 title, with captain Evan O’Carroll silky smooth at HQ as they looked a class apart against Leitrim.
They will be glad of an extra week off that Westmeath were not afforded. Their only defeat in the league was against Andy Moran’s side, one which was most certainly atoned for.
Now comes a certain expectation that hasn’t existed in that area of the Midlands for too long now. How McNulty’s men carry that burden will be interesting.
Offaly won’t be far away, but it’s hard to back against the form team, especially given both sides’ injury profile.
Kildare v Wicklow (SUNDAY, Laois Hire O’Moore Park, 1.45pm)
Who would have looked at this fixture a few months ago and thought it a potential banana skin? That’s where Kildare stand in the right here, right now. Surely they’ve reached rock bottom. Lose this weekend and it starts to get pitiful.
It would have been fascinating to be a fly-on-the-wall these past few weeks. How did Glenn Ryan approach a three-week break off the back of a seven game losing streak?
The carrot, where you brainwash a group of fully grown men into thinking the year to date never happened, where you go back to square one, you re-assess, and you try to embrace it.
Or the stick, where you front up, analyse the mishaps and disasters to the verge of breaking point, and attempt to use the hurt to your advantage.
This isn’t where the Lilywhites ever saw themselves when they assembled what was supposed to be the dream team. Ryan, Anthony Rainbow, Johnny Doyle and Dermot Earley. They are what you call icons.
Kevin Cassidy will need no reminder of 2011 and the All-Ireland quarter between Donegal and Kildare. The McGeeney heydays, a Cassidy wonderpoint separating the sides when nothing else could.
Little did Cassidy know that was his final act. Kildare have hardy flirted with the big boys since. Right now, they seem miles off.
But they’re not. A controversial point for All-Star Conor McCarthy was all that separated them and Monaghan last year, with the Farney going on to beat Armagh and make the final four.
Indeed, without that point, McCarthy may not even be an All-Star. On another day, it isn’t given, Kildare progress, they head to Croker and they might well beat Armagh too once the McGeeney sideshow loses all relevance.
Maybe that’s all whataboutery. Top level sport is all decided by the finest of margins.
But Kildare aren’t a bad side overnight, just as they wouldn’t have been world beaters if the tree fell the other way.
Wicklow meanwhile have turned up trees of their own. The likes of last weekend are the reason Oisín McConville uprooted his life to swap a comfortable club job 20 minutes from home for the ultimate challenge.
It’s 167 kilometres from Crossmaglen to Aughrim, but McConville it seems has bridged a gap in taking a golden touch and a winning mentality with him on the drive.
His fiery honesty always makes him one of the game’s most interesting characters. He certainly didn’t mix his words in recognising a small Wicklow crowd:
“The madness at the end of that game is what championship is all about.
“People missed out on that today who weren’t here.”
“To grind that out in the end is just brilliant, and more of a reflection of who we are, and what we’re about.”
You know for a fact it won’t be as small of a crowd this time around.
And it was all without goalkeeper Mark Jackson, who was not afforded the Rory Beggan treatment despite his return home from the US.
Dean Healy at centrefield was arguably the star of the show, as he has been for many’s a year with much less credit. In full-forward Kevin Quinn, The Garden County also have a real gem.
But just how good were they in victory? Were Westmeath at the races? Can Wicklow put in back-to-back top performances and attempt to defy all odds, again?
It seems unlikely. Last weekend was surely a wake-up call for Kildare if they had any notion of heading into this one with an air of complacency.
If they show up, they will win this. In fact, they will win it without producing their best.
And that’s the only reason to be confident in a Kildare victory, because we haven’t seen the best of the Lilywhites in quite some time now.
Louth v Wexford (SUNDAY, Laois Hire O’Moore Park, 4pm)
For want of a better phrase, Wexford are playing like a team that are a little pissed off. Sometimes that can be a bad thing. In this case it isn’t.
Picture: Sportsfile (Matt Browne / SPORTSFILE/SPORTSFILE)
Having failed to secure promotion on the final day (due to results elsewhere not going in their favour in Division Four), the clip of Wexford’s defeat to Leitrim a few weeks’ prior re-emerged.
You’d describe the decisive, late penalty given to Leitrim as incredibly soft if you were being any way genuine. An upper-class Wexican would probably label it a disgrace.
What the common people thought can be left for you to discover in the dark corners of the cesspit that social media is inclined to be when people feel wronged.
You’d imagine they got some of it out of their system last week, with a final round clipping of Longford in the league followed up with a statement 4-19 0-08 win over Carlow.
If Derry, Kerry or The Dubs put up a scoreline like that you would hear the cries of necessity for the Tailteann Cup, how the leagues are our best competition etc, etc.
Yet these were two Division Four teams, they both remain so for 2025. Sometimes one side just wants it more. Sometimes one side is just better on any given day.
If Brazil played Germany 100 times over back in 2014 you could be sure they wouldn’t lose 7-1 again.
The cries to split Germany in half never came, although there may well be some political implications there. Who knows….
The reality is Wexford will love a cut at Louth. If they think they’re better than Division Four, you don’t get many better chances than this to prove it.
Stats and Solos GAA on X give The Yellowbellies a 7% chance of making a Leinster final and qualifying for the race for Sam.
On current form, they are dark horses for the Tailteann Cup. But the group phase is weeks away. If Louth were to win well, it’s a long, momentum-sapping wait for matches.
The bookies’ handicap is only five points, showing an improvement in Wexford, but equally calling into question Louth’s firepower.
A one-point, final round win over Kildare was all that saved them from the drop in the end. And close games were a running theme in their campaign, with narrow defeats to Meath, Cavan and Armagh, losing those by a combined four points.
And although they scored a whopping 6-17 against Fermanagh, the Wee County failed to strike more than 15 scores in any other game.
It’s a big year for Louth, and they could rightly feel aggrieved that Mickey Harte stepped aside when it felt like the middle of something rather than the end.
They need a Leinster final, a big match against The Dubs in Croker, and an opportunity to prove they are better than the 5-21 0-15 point hiding of 2023.
Because their league campaign suggests they have gone backwards. It’s a results business, as Ger Brennan will be all too aware.
With or without Harte, it seems as though 2024 will be the year in which the project succeeds or it fails.
A win over Wexford is non-negotiable. Louth’s year is bigger than that, but you must walk before you can run, especially in this new format packed with fixtures.
Brennan is alive to that, labelling Wexford as “very impressive; well-organised and well-structured” in the win over Carlow.
After all, it was John Hegarty’s side’s third biggest Championship win of all time.
Even so, it will take an almighty upheaval to deny Louth a crack at Kildare or Wicklow.