Have a go, we just didn’t finish chances’

were in a good position and we even felt that our attacking plan that we had, we didn’t use it enough in the first half and we thought we were going to use it more in the second half.

‘We didn’t come here to see how much we could lose by, we came to have a go. We obviously felt we needed to stop Dublin goals, we did that, but at the other end of the pitch we didn’t create enough chances. The couple of goals chances that we did create we needed them.

‘That had an impact on us. But Dublin to be fair to them totally dominated the second half. I think it was 0-10 to 0-3 in the second half so we are bitterly disappointed with our second half display.

‘When we were trying to mix letting the ball in long and running at them and I felt that when we were running at them we were causing them trouble. They are a very seasoned team and if you don’t get it right and you end up taking it into the tackle they will invariably take it off you.

‘Dublin were pretty solid in the second half, particularly in defence and we weren’t able to cut them open. That early chance in the first half we needed to get that, Mickey Newman had a chance in the second half we needed to get that as well. We kicked easy frees wide that we needed to be scoring. All of those chances, when you are the challenger you need to be taking them and we didn’t.

‘In the last 15 to 20 minutes it can look as if we were stretched and we were. Dublin were pulling us all over the field left to right, there is a lot of running involved in that. I think when we look back on it there will be some very good solid individual displays. In it there will be some good passages of team play and they are the benchmark playing against the best team in the country.

‘Dublin have been doing what they done there today to teams that are further advanced than us. We have to just learn what we can from for Derry.’

Closing the massive gap that exists between the two counties is something Meath have to continue to work on according to the Skryne man.

‘There is no excuses been made here but again we are bringing on players that are making their debut for Meath while Dublin are bringing on seasoned players that have won All-Irelands. that the gap we just have to keep working hard on. Its not nice, I’m as passionate a Meath man as anyone who has ever played for the county or being involved. Those players have given so much to be really ready to compete at this level but that shows you that they have more work to do. That is the reality of it we are not making excuses, we are going to put our heads down and keep working hard at it.

‘The players are shattered in there. They didn’t come up here to just produce a damage it and get ready limitation as some people were thinking and I know there will probably be some criticism of why didn’t we have a go. We did have a go. We just didn’t finish our chances when we got them. You didn’t want to come here and concede early goals to Dublin, that was a real plus at half-time to be just 0-11 to 0-8 down. We just have to review our second half and see why we only scored three points, that is the challenge.

Lifting the team ahead of the qualifier is the next task at hand but O’Dowd doesn’t believe that will prove a difficulty.

‘I don’t think it will be hard at all to lift them. The team has put so much into this over the last eight months that I won’t think it will be difficult to get them ready. We played up in Derry before in the league so we know where we are going. We will dust ourselves down, we got a bit of a lesson in the second half, we are not the first to get it and we don’t be the last either.’