I’m sure Colm O’Rourke and Meath will be gunning for us – Louth ace Campbell

Dermot Campbell has been that soldier – animpressionableyoungLouthsupporter experiencing championship heartbreak against their nearest and dearest rivals.

They haven’t beaten Meath in SFC combat for 49 years. Ten encounters, ten defeats. None more painful than the twin traumas of a 2002 qualifier in Navan and that Leinster final in 2010.

Campbell (right) attended both games and remembers how it felt afterwards. But now in the novel Monaghan setting of Inniskeen tomorrow, he hopes to be part of the first Louth squad since 1975 to take the Royals’ championship scalp.

The Dreadnots defender returned as a second-half sub in Louth’s recent Leinster final defeat to Dublin, having sat out the semi-final against Kildare with a hamstring twinge.

Fourteen years previously, he had gone out of his way to make another notorious provincial decider, the 2010 showpiece against Meath forever associated with Joe Sheridan’s wrongly awarded goal at the death.

“I was in the Ghaeltacht in Connemara and was on the train back to Galway that night. I was 16 at the time, I think. Jesus, all those players were my idols and we were so close to winning that final. And, yeah, what happened towards the end was pandemonium,” he recalls.

“But I’d often look back at that game and, without criticising anyone, Louth had chances to close that out – and probably should have shown more composure towards the end in terms of there was a ball hoofed away, we won it in the backs and it came back to a Meath man.

“It was a heartbreaking moment, especially as a teenager. But it’s not something we will be discussing or will be entering our circle of thought. And the same as the Meath lads. There’s no one even involved any more, from either team … but yeah, I’ll never forget that.”

Eight years previously came that ’02 qualifier at a jammed Páirc Tailteann. Same sucker-punch outcome, with Meath striking two late goals – from Richie Kealy on 70 minutes and then Graham Geraghty in the fourth minute of injury-time after three had been signalled – to snatch victory.

Campbell can still picture the “late disappointment and the drama. You know, it was probably a theme of those games,” he admits. “So look, Meath have had the upper hand, no doubt, against Louth in championship games. As a supporter back