Costello staying positive ahead of daunting showdown with Sky Blue beast

A stark reminder of how far the Meath-Dublin rivalry has fallen comes from Mathew Costello. The Meath vice-captain can remember his county’s last championship win over their great rivals, the 2010 five-goal dismantling, but he was just a child.

“I would only have been about eight or nine at the time,” Costello recalled.

“We might have been at a function and the game was on in the background in the hotel or something like that. We all sat down and watched it. It was brilliant.”

It’s against this backdrop that Meath step into the arena on Sunday. There’s an entire generation in the county who haven’t seen Meath beat Dublin and unable to appreciate why the pair once held the nation in thrall.

The days when the rest of the country could sit back and watch the Royals perform anaesthetic-free surgery on the game’s showtime team have long gone. Those pages have yellowed with age.

Instead, it’s Dublin doing the fileting regularly, routing Meath and the rivalry with it.

The numbers make for gloomy reading from a Meath point of view. Since that 2010 reversal, Dublin have won their eight championship head-to-heads by a cumulative 92 points – an average margin of 11.5. When the sides last met in the championship, Dublin were 11 points up at half-time, eventually winning by a conservative 13 when the game had long since been decided.

Costello knows that Dublin’s ability to whip up a storm can leave anyone punch drunk.

“It is a tough place to be, and against opposition like Dublin, it can happen very quickly,” he said.

“Before you even know it, you can be a good bit behind. The idea is to go out, be nice and tight at the back and [still] be in the game at half-time. In previous times, unfortunately, that has not happened – and that is a tough place to be at half-time.”

Proud

So Costello is keeping on the positive track. What else can he do? When the draw was made, they knew a win over Longford would see them tackle the Dubs.

“You are really proud to represent Meath and proud of the history there. We are all aware of nearly all of those big games, but also you need to forget about it. You need to create your own history. As a group, that’s what we want to do. We have a great crop of young talent coming through. It is shown at minor level. We want to show [that] a bit more at senior level.”

Costello acknowledges that Meath are not alone in falling off the pace. Dublin have jumped just about everyone for the last decade and more. But Meath have been trying to generate momentum in the shadow of the most dominant team the game has seen. And nothing grows in the shade.

But they’ll go again, knowing that only worrying about themselves can help.

“You just have to bring the fight to them, trust and be confident in the way you play, get a performance together. And if you are there or thereabouts in the last while, then the championship minutes will speak for themselves. Those last 10 minutes, anything can happen,” he said.

“We really have to get a performance together, play to our strengths and see where that takes you.”

Meath have the advantage of having already felt championship action, and they looked the part in attack last weekend against Longford, hitting 3-19, with all bar one point coming from play.

But the concession of three goals to Division 4 opposition will set alarm bells ringing and will surely whet the appetite of Con O’Callaghan and Co.

“I think everyone in the squad is just really looking forward to it,” Costello said.

“We saw when the draw was made a long time ago that if we were to beat Longford, (then) we were going to meet Dublin in Croke Park. It’s something we’ve been building towards and we’re really looking forward to it. Hopefully, on Sunday, we give a good account of ourselves. We know what we’re up against. Their season so far speaks for itself. They’re flying it.

“But it can only be a positive thing to go and have a crack in Croke Park.”