Through pain barrier
very mobile type players, Brian McGrath, all complement each other very well.’
Knocked out of the Leinster Club at the first hurdle 12 months ago, O’Rourke is hopeful that his side can make progress in the competition this year.
They take on Wexford champions Starlights on November 12th but will likely have to plan for that one without Conor Nash who is expected to return to Melbourne this week to continue his AFL career with the Hawthorn club.
Referring to his 19-year-old star midfielder who only returned for the knockout stages of the campaign O’Rourke said: ‘Yeah, I think he’s gone, I didn’t even discuss anything with him. All we wanted was today out of him and we got it. He’s a superb player and he’s a great fella for the team and the club and we’re delighted to have it.
‘I think we’ll take a bit more interest in the Leinster Club this year,’ O’Rourke continued. ‘Second time around I suppose there is a different feel to the whole thing and maybe now we’ll take it a bit more seriously than we did last year. We came up against Rhode last year so it was a hard opening game for us. Maybe if we had a game earlier we might have been able to manage them a bit better.’
O’Rourke said that the main aim this year was to hold on to their Meath crown, having won it for the first time following a 51 year wait in 2016.
‘We set out this year and the big thing is that we’ve gone unbeaten through the championship as well. To win a championship with eight games, won them all, we’re delighted with that. Last year, we struggled through the early rounds and then got going. This year we had more serious intent. We’re better this year than last year. The lads have been very disciplined, very focused and dedicated, very keen to win another one, right from the beginning. I thought from the end of last year maybe they’d be happy with one. Instead of that they were actually hungrier to win again.’