If Meath faced the Dubs 10 times, they’d win one... why not this one?
Three Royal county legends mull over the state of football in the county and suggest that all is not totally lost today
TWENTY years ago, Darren Fay, Paddy Reynolds and Barry Callaghan made their senior Championship debuts for Meath together, asked by manager Seán Boylan to make the jump from boys to men, a Leinster opener against Carlow amounting to a step into the great unknown.
In terms of value, they were raw, uncut diamonds.
Before summer’s end they would play together on provincial final day when All-Ireland champions Dublin were dethroned – ‘I remember the whole Hogan Stand in the second half, the roar when we went ahead that day. I haven’t heard one since like it,’ says Callaghan – before parading Sam Maguire one after the other on the steps of the Hogan Stand that September. Diamonds, polished and gleaming. All three would add a second All-Ireland in 1999. Reynolds proudly holds the unique distinction of winning an All Star at left half-back, just like his father Pat, while Fay won three All Stars and added another chapter to Meath’s rich legacy of indomitable No.3s, from Paddy ‘Hands’ O’Brien to Jack Quinn to Mick Lyons.
On Wednesday evening, the trio gathered in the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan, ostensibly to plan for a Leinster minor semi-final against Kildare but also managing to catch a piece of Ireland’s Euro 2016 win over Italy and discuss all things Meath and Dublin ahead of Sunday’s Leinster semifinal.
The laptop and notebook in Callaghan’s possession is a nod to his role as county minor manager, his old team-mates, now selectors, with him. Last month, the minors became the first Meath team to beat Dublin in Leinster championship at any grade of note since the Under 21s in 2011.
When the odds for Sunday’s senior game are mentioned, it immediately causes some of the old passions to stir. Dublin 1-50 on. Meath 14-1. The spread +13.
‘If you were playing in the match, that’s a serious incentive that the bookies have that much disrespect,’ says Callaghan. ‘Dublin can’t control the odds. But that the general public thinks that little of you, in a two-horse race, with 15 guys competing against 15 guys, that they think it’s even money that there would be 13 points in the difference. It doesn’t sit comfortable with me. I hope we see a reaction from our guys.’
‘If you went to the Euros and Spain played Iceland, sure Iceland wouldn’t be 12 or 14-1,’ adds Fay. ‘It is crazy. The bookies are rarely wrong but I can’t believe they have made Dublin such favourites for this game.
‘It should give a huge incentive. You’d imagine there would be a reaction. But it can go the other way, get inside player’s heads, “Jaysus, we haven’t a chance here”.’
Reynolds believes the mental challenge is key. ‘Within that group, you need serious belief to deal with that. Being so under-rated.’
Twenty years ago, the legacy of losing the previous year’s Leinster final to Dublin by 10 points and Boylan throwing a curveball with so many Under 21s in the starting 15 meant that Meath supporters feared an ambush against Carlow.
‘I can’t believe it’s 20 years,’ admits Callaghan. ‘I remember the build-up to the Carlow match. Éire Óg were very strong in club football at the time and there was certainly a feeling in Meath that Meath could be beaten.’
What sticks out in Fay’s mind is Boylan’s unique methods of preparation. ‘I remember training up in Gormanston, doing basketball with a Gaelic football. We were playing basketball but we were fist-passing it. Shooting for baskets. Made the training so enjoyable over the winter.’
And the manager was already mindbending. ‘I remember Seán telling us during that winter,’ says Callaghan, “Look it lads, you’re a new group here but there is no doubt that you’re in the top three teams in the country.” I remember it vividly. Fay: ‘Jaysus you were gullible!’ Callaghan: ‘Exactly! But he’s after winning All-Irelands and bringing you in and telling you this. Playing Carlow, you didn’t think you were going to win the All-Ireland but you didn’t think you weren’t either.
‘Maybe it’s naivete that we believed it. But certainly, we didn’t go out against Dublin later with any fear.’
Back then, trying to beat Dublin was an end in itself. ‘At the time, and I still think it’s true in Meath, every lad growing up wants to play in a Leinster final in Croke Park against Dublin,’ explains Fay. ‘No other team. Just Dublin. And we got our wish.
‘Dublin were All-Ireland champions and [Jason] Sherlock the golden boy of the GAA. The GAA were trying to make something of him and market him. I think Dublin took us for granted to an extent, especially after beating us by 10 points the previous year. You still had Eamon Heery, Keith Barr, Paul Curran. Joe McNally was playing at that time, just didn’t play in the Leinster final.’
Current Dublin manager Jim Gavin played that day, wing-forward, while Reynolds had a different challenge in front of him. ‘Ciaran Whelan played the other wing that day. I know because I marked him. Was AN Other in the programme. And out he came, six foot whatever he was, and made his debut. Scored a couple of points.
‘It was do-or-die that day. winnertakes-all. There was no second chance back then, no hope of an All-Ireland if you lost.’
No chorus of ‘Boom boom, boom, let me hear you say Jayo…’ either from the Hill, Fay’s shackling of Dublin’s poster boy setting the tone. ‘I won three Leinsters and they were all against Dublin in a Leinster final. I cherish those medals with the All-Irelands.
‘Now? I don’t think young people in Dublin are going, “I want to play in Croke Park against Meath.” They have moved beyond the rivalry. They’re saying, “I want to win an AllIreland with Dublin”. I still think it means so much to Meath to beat Dublin. I don’t think it means so much for Dublin to beat Meath.’
As Reynolds puts it: ‘We’d be seen now as a weaker team.’
That was hard to imagine in 2001 when Meath’s rout of Kerry in the AllIreland semi-final ended with the infamous ‘olé’ cheer as supporters rubbed the losers’ noses in it with every completed pass.
‘I THINK MEATH FOOTBALL LOST WHAT IT STOOD FOR THAT DAY’
Fay has always regarded that as a defining moment, especially when the fall from grace came against Galway in the final. ‘I think Meath football lost something that day. It lost what it stood for.’
The county hasn’t been back in a final since. ‘If you said in 2001 that you wouldn’t be in an All-Ireland final, never mind win one? No, you weren’t thinking that. You didn’t see it coming,’ admits Callaghan.
The reason they got involved at underage level was simple. ‘You were listening to so much crap over the years,’ explains Reynolds. ‘We said, let’s try and do something about it. It was time to step up.’
Martin McHugh’s theory is that the Celtic Tiger played its part in Meath’s downfall, the Donegal pundit suggesting that a different set of priorities took over, as if there were too many lattes drunk around Navan.
Callaghan has a different slant. ‘The Celtic Tiger hit the whole country – I wouldn’t blame it on that. No doubt about it: we took our eye off the ball in terms of underage structures. That was our biggest problem.
‘We’d a county board which was dysfunctional, and that’s not being too harsh on them. Our facilities didn’t move on; our teams didn’t move on; our club structures didn’t move on. A number of factors. And then when the senior team fell off the cliff there was nothing coming behind it.’
There are those who like to paint Dublin’s dominance as down to Bertie’s millions, lottery funding, AIG cheques – rather than talent and organisation. All three don’t buy it.
‘It’s a cop out,’ says Reynolds of the financial backing argument. ‘An excuse for not performing.’
‘I think it suits Dublin in a way, the money,’ echoes Fay. ‘I don’t think if Meath had that money you’d get the rewards. We used to train up in Fairyhouse and Hill of Tara and all we’d have was lamps of jeeps behind us. I think that’s more suited to Meath football.
Reynolds: ‘Jesus, Fayzer you’re going back a bit now!’
Fay: ‘Seán kept it grounded, kept it simple. But when you went out on a day, it meant so much to you. Nowadays, all teams are being prepared nicely. All their gear is washed. They’re in nice gyms, nice music playing, TVs on. I don’t think that suits Meath. I think they need to go back to the hard core training. People will say, “Ah that’s naïve, football has moved on.” But it hasn’t. Fifteen players and the pitch is the same size. And as far as I’m aware the goals are still nailed in the centre.’ You get the distinct sense that all three would love to roll back the years, to be back in that dressing room today itching for a crack at the All-Ireland champions, just like 20 years ago.
Fay mixes realism with a note of defiance. ‘Dublin are a better team than Meath. No question. More advanced − anyone in Meath will tell you that. The players will tell you that. But on one given day, there is always the possibility. But you need the belief.
‘Dublin are maybe three or four years ahead of them. But any one day, given a disciplined performance, everything going right, and the belief that you can win it, then it’s possible. I think if Meath played Dublin 10 times, Meath would win one. Why not this one?’