E he demanded

and see what happens there, but it doesn’t look good and that puts a real downer on it.

‘It looks like it’s a cruciate. Alan was having a very good year - he has had serious injuries before and he’s worked hard to get back there. It’s really disappointing for him.’

McEntee agreed that performances like that and those against Derry and Galway help breed confidence into the side.

‘I think when you’re putting an emphasis on certain values and certain qualities and lads can see that, okay, when we implement the plan that we’re looking to implement and we get results, that gives them confidence in themselves. It gives them confidence in what we’re asking them to do, so it all helps.’

Looking ahead to the Clare clash, McEntee said much will depend on Meath applying themselves to the task.

‘They lost by a point to Kildare, we lost by nine or 10, whatever it was. Clare are like a lot of teams that are fairly similar - they work hard, get bodies behind the ball and are strong enough at midfield and have a couple of pretty tasty forwards. But it’s the same as anything else. If we apply ourselves we have a chance. If we don’t apply ourselves then the chances are that we’ll get turned over.’

When asked, were Meath ready to take the step up to Division 1, McEntee said it wasn’t something he had thought about too much.

‘Certainly you’d look at some of the performances and you’d say that we’re not ready to go up. But you look at some of the others and you say that, well, maybe we could learn from playing the other teams in that tier.

‘Whether we’re ready for it or not, I don’t really know. But I think everyone would like to go up.

‘I think anyone in Division 2 at the start of the campaign would have said their ambition is to go up to Division 1, so we’re no different. I would have said that in the beginning. Mind you, after the first three games I was probably changing my opinion a little bit.’