Meath's lofty ambitions fuelled by tyros raising the bar

RTÉ News​

4 days ago

Meath will be hell-bent on reaching an All-Ireland football semi-final this weekend, but whatever transpires this weekend at Croke Park, 2025 has been a qualified success for the Royals.
Ending Dublin's dominance in Leinster was a shock to most outside the camp, while reaching the quarter-final stage was achieved with just a third-ever championship victory over Kerry. For the first time in their history, they have lowered both Kerry and Dublin colours in the same season.
Robbie Brennan's team got to sit back and watch others scrap it out at the weekend, with Galway now focussed on bringing the Meath journey to a conclusion on Sunday (live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player).
For all the highs, there is the obvious disappointment of a provincial final defeat. Getting Dublin out of the picture was only half the job and it was Louth who put new colours on the Delaney Cup.
Team captain Eoghan Frayne says for all the focus now on Galway, there is no getting away from the progress made this season.
"It's been a great year," he said at the RTÉ Sport summer launch. "We had some massive wins. At the same time we lost the Leinster final as well which was a big one. You're judged off silverware."
Brennan spoke in the dressing room to his charges after the loss and delivered a message that resonated with a group looking to continue an upward trajectory.
"He just said, 'You can only be really disappointed if you don't believe that you'll be back here again'.
"It was kind of just, 'look, we've made serious progress so far, there's no point throwing it away really'."
Frayne saw bits and pieces of Galway's win over Down on The Sunday Game. The video analysis will be served to the players this week, but there are no nostalgia pangs for a fixture that would please the traditionalists.
He wasn't born when the sides met in the 2001 All-Ireland final, a match between counties who carved up three of four titles between them around the turn of the century, and has no memory of the 2007 qualifier where the Royals turned over the Tribesmen in a Round 4 qualifier in O'Moore Park en route to an All-Ireland semi-final appearance.
Events in Páirc Esler served to highlight the importance of two-pointers; Down's second-half comeback turbo-charged by two successful efforts a little over a minute after the resumption, while Shane Walsh illustrated yet again why he is arguably the best in the business from outside the arc.
It's little surprise that Frayne is a fan of the orange flag – his effort against Kerry was his 10th so far of the campaign – and he feels it is vital to make hay with the right people on the ball.
"It's not that big of a kick and if there's a slight breeze, it's actually not that hard to score them if you're any way accurate at all.
"They're exciting, and it's great to see lads shooting from distance. If you get two or three in a row, it's a huge momentum swing.
"We're just lucky enough to have some good skilful natural footballers and I think the new rules kind of shows off the skills of the players which we're lucky enough to have."
It pleases the Summerhill man that they have the 1.45pm Sunday slot – "I'd rather an earlier game than an evening game, I like to get going straight away" – in what will be just his third game at Croke Park for Meath.
Last year's defeat to the Dubs and the provincial final reversal at the hands of Louth means there is motivation to right that particular wrong, though it's easy to forget he only made his senior bow two years ago.
One of Brennan's first move was to appoint Frayne as the new team captain. He notched 0-11 in taking down the Dubs and the performance levels suggested the responsibility wasn't weighing heavy on his shoulders.
Did it all happen faster than he had expected?
"Down the line, maybe it was a goal of mine to captain Meath, just from maybe being minor and under-20s captain, it would have been a nearly natural progression," he says.
"I feel that I'd always wanted to be and I would have 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."
The Maynooth University student has Ciarán Caulfield (22) as vice-captain and it shows Brennan's decision to put his faith in the coming crop of players, marrying that in with the experience of the likes of Bryan Menton and Donal Keoghan.
"They've been doing it long enough, they don't need to be worrying about all that stuff now, they just kind of need to focus on themselves.
"Robbie wanted to give more responsibility to lads that are starting off rather than giving it to the same fellas that are further on in their career."
Éamonn Fitzmaurice is among those who believe that the Royals harbour a real shot at turning over a Galway side with plenty of mileage on the clock in recent weeks and likely to be short of a clean bill of health.
A place in the last four would be dreamland stuff for supporters, but Frayne has loftier ambitions again.
Asked what the ceiling is for this group of players, he said: "Hopefully winning All-Irelands. That has to be the aim, your goal can't be just to beat Dublin in the Leinster championship.
"You have to be looking further on that as well at the same time. Everyone wants to be winning All-Irelands and Leinster championships, so hopefully we can get there."
Watch two All-Ireland Football Championship quarter-finals, Meath v Galway and Armagh v Kerry, from 1.15pm on Sunday on RTÉ 2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentaries on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 10.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.