Meath's sliding doors moment as they prepare for All-Ire quarter-final v Galway

Irish Daily Mirror

5 days ago

Meath skipper Eoghan Frayne says that beating Dublin meant that the Royals were in no mood to let their season slip away after the hammer blow of their Leinster final defeat.
That breakthrough triumph over the Dubs was followed by the loss to Louth, and that could have been the signal for Robbie Brennan's young side to start thinking about other summer plans.
Instead, they got their act together and beat Kerry and Cork in the group stage to set up Sunday's All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Galway. Frayne describes it as a "great year" to date with those massive wins banked - but with the big asterisk of that loss to Louth.
"You're judged off silverware so we were disappointed with that," he said. "But we've come on a long way this year so hopefully it keeps going. It could have gone two ways, really. It could have been the end of our season and it could have fallen apart.
"Or we could have recognised, as we did, that it's not the end of the world and there's plenty more games to go and we kind of did that.
"Everyone was of the same mindset that after beating Dublin, which hasn't happened in a good few years, we were kind of like, 'there's something here, there's no point throwing this away now' and giving up at this stage of the year.
"So we kind of just got on with it straight away. There was no dwelling on it. We got back training straight away and tried to forget about it as quickly as possible and things have gone decent enough since.
"It hit some lads differently than others. Maybe the older lads on the squad might have thought that it was kind of their last chance. The younger lads, and there's a good few in the squad, I suppose they kind of brushed it off, or it doesn't hit them as hard, so probably it takes a few days."
Frayne believes the FRC's new rules have worked in favour of Meath, who have a number of players who are comfortable taking on longer range shots for two pointers.
"There obviously is a huge reward for getting them. You could see in some of the games, there's no lead nearly big enough now," he said.
"If you get two or three two pointers, it's a big chunk of scores that you can get in a short period of time. If you get two or three in a row, it's a huge momentum swing. So yeah, definitely it could come down to it. I think it's definitely something worth going after."
Royals command is sitting lightly on Frayne's shoulders. Only 22, he was handed the reins by Brennan at the start of the year - a rapid promotion for a player who only made his intercounty debut two years ago.
But the Summerhill man had been captaincy material coming through the underage ranks. "Definitely came quicker than expected," Frayne said. "Maybe down the line it was a goal of mine to captain Meath - just from maybe being minor and 20s captain, it would have been a nearly natural progression.
"I would've been working towards that but then when it came along, I was obviously shocked that it came so soon. But I didn't have to think twice about it. I was always going to say yes. It's obviously a great honour for me, especially when I'm 22. I was delighted. It's been a great honour so far."
Ciarán Caulfield, also 22, was made vice-captain. Frayne reckons Brennan made his leadership picks to put more responsibility on the younger players and to take that pressure off the older team members.
The skipper says that Brennan has made the players feel "10 foot tall" while the older cohort have taken the pressure off him a lot. "It's been a team effort," he said. "It's not just laid all on me.
"There's good lads in there helping out as well and everyone's kind of driving it, it's not just left to me. So that's definitely important. I didn't want to get caught up in the whole captaincy sort of thing and then it kind of affects my performance then.
"Because that's the most important thing. I still have to focus on myself and get the best out of myself, but also try to get the best out of other lads as well."
RTÉ launches over 90 days of national and international Sport: Women's Euros, Women's Rugby World Cup, European Hockey Championships, GAA Championships, World Athletics Championships, Irish Open, Horse Racing and much more free-to-air on RTÉ across all platforms