COLM O’Rourke has defended his tactics with Tailteann Cup finalists Meath and insisted he’s not a “stone age” manager.
The 65-year-old has guided the Royals to Saturday week’s tier two decider against Down with an attractive brand of direct football.
Long deliveries to the full-forward line have paid off on several occasions, though critics of the traditional tactic were out in force when things turned sour for Meath during the League.
They beat Cork and Clare in their opening Division Two games but failed to win another match and were then beaten by Offaly in the opening round of the Leinster SFC, sending them into the Tailteann Cup.
“I think people thought I was a sort of a stone age fella, that I only knew one way of playing,” said O’Rourke, who previously enjoyed schools success with St Patrick’s, Navan and guided Simonstown to back-to-back Meath SFC titles.
“I have been having a good bit of success with other teams I have been involved with. You adapt to the modern demands of the game and I suppose in the beginning people would have thought we were so open defensively in some of our games that I was trying to play a 1980s style game.”
Meath were torn asunder by Derry in the League before conceding 2-19 to Dublin, while Louth and Kildare beat them too. Their openness at the back surprised those who expected coach Paul Garrigan, the brains behind the counter-attacking gameplan used by Meath to win back to back All-Ireland ladies’ titles, to have an immediate impact.
“Our defensive system and what we are trying to do hasn’t changed from the first game of the League to the game we have just played against Antrim [in the Tailteann Cup semi-final],” said O’Rourke.
“So we have had a defensive system and we have been trying to be more defensive in nature. It just takes time with newer players. We are improving all the time but it’s still a work in progress and we are not nearly there yet.”
The former Sunday Game analyst is positive about the way Gaelic football is being played generally.
He said he can’t see any “turning back” to the way the game used to be played with less defensive tactics, but believes it’s not all doom and gloom despite the clear rise of possession-based football.
“The two most successful counties, Kerry and Dublin, I’d always find it enjoyable to go and watch their style of play,” he said.
“The winners generally dictate the style and the Dublin style for six years when they were winning All-Irelands was something I admired.
“They didn’t mind kicking it. Look at the first goal they got against Mayo at the weekend, a long high ball in, Colm Basquel catches it and turns his man and bangs it into the net.
“Kerry were doing plenty of kicking of the ball last weekend too so I’m quite surprised at Armagh who were using that tactic quite a lot in previous games.
“I was in Clones one day [when Armagh beat Donegal in the 2022 Qualifiers] and the throw-in was caught and banged into the net, I think Rory Grugan got it and put it in the net.
“Like, why would Armagh go away from that when it was paying dividends? They got three goals against Down in the Ulster semi-final kicking the ball in high. So teams who have been kicking the ball a good bit, and I know you can’t just kick it in all the time, it still has been profitable for quite a few counties.”
The Meath-Down game on Saturday week will be played as the curtain-raiser to the All-Ireland senior semi-final game between Dublin and Monaghan. One of O’Rourke’s first comments after taking charge of Meath last autumn was to claim that they would be targeting Dublin in 2023.
“We’ll be ignored,” acknowledged O’Rourke when asked about the Meath-Dublin rivalry.
“One of the problems with extra-time in these games is there’s going to be quite a big time gap between double-header games, so I’d say Dublin will pass no remarks on us. Only when we’re able to compete with them will they pay us any attention.”
