Best of enemies in the past, Cork and Meath battle now for relevance
WHEN Meath and Cork last found themselves in each other’s company for an Allianz League game, 1980s nostalgia was thin on the ground. Attention was focused elsewhere, as a bitter civil war was ripping Leeside GAA apart.
The days before the opening weekend of the 2009 season was dominated by speculation that the Rebel footballers might withdraw their services from the Division 2 game in Paírc Uí Chaoimh, in solidarity with their hurling brethren who were, once again, at loggerheads with the county board.
In the end, the match (below) went ahead with Conor Counihan’s side serving notice of the impressive array of talent that eventually propelled them to 2010 All-Ireland glory, trouncing Meath to the tune of eight points.
The Royal County side that travelled home also held serious ambitions of reaching higher ground and within 16 months of that League game, they had as they won the Leinster title in controversial circumstances.
Much has happened in the intervening eight years, though. This afternoon, two traditional powerhouses meet at Paírc Uí Rinn with survival in the second tier the primary aspiration of both sides.
Any nostalgia for the 1980s among supporters today will be forgiven, given what they once were and what they have now become. Thirty years on from when the two best football teams in the country engaged in a brutal war that both enthralled, and horrified, the nation, Cork and Meath are now in danger of slipping into irrelevance. How has it come to this?
Meath don’t need to go searching through the dusty corners of the GAA past to discover the last time they played Division 3 football. It happened all too recently, and remains a source of pain. In 2012, gaining a measure of revenge for what had occurred in the 2010 Leinster final, Louth relegated their neighbours, which led Martin McHugh to suggest on RTÉ television that the Royals had gone ‘soft’.
The sirens have been wailing in both counties for some time. It was hard to ignore them when Cork fell flat on their faces against Clare two weeks ago, or when Kildare hit Meath for 3-17 on the opening weekend of the League. They have been heard too often in the past – without corrective action taken,
When talk turns to how far Meath and Cork have fallen in 30 years, explanations are remarkably similar. The two counties have always had a footballing giant to contend with as a neighbour and both Dublin and Kerry have surged again in recent years.
In both counties, they have been forced to contend with injuries at crucial times and warriors unfortunately cut down in their prime by injury. Meath goalkeeper Paddy O’Rourke is the only link, on either side, to that 2009 League game. In only eight years, that’s a staggering rate of attrition, even for the modern game.
Both have suffered painful experiences, leaving deep wounds that will take a long time to heal. This group of Meath footballers were the first to lose in the Championship to Westmeath – doing so by giving up a 10-point lead, These Cork players lost to Tipperary inside of Munster for the first time in 72 years. The sort of summer days that leave deep scars and snap confidence.
While Peadar Healy has already had a year at the helm in Cork, and there were some greenshoots in their creditable display in defeat to Donegal at Croke Park last August, Andy McEntee’s appointment this winter engendered the usual optimism that occurs with a new manager, more so because he had been so impressive in taking Ballyboden to an All-Ireland club title. But that optimism evaporated as Kildare seemingly hit the net at will last month.
There is some talented footballers in Meath, Cillian O’Sullivan is a joy to watch at centre-forward, Donal Keoghan remains the stickiest of corner-backs. But there is a lack of that intangible quality that always made Meath hard to beat, what Billy Morgan called ‘a mix of stubbornness and arrogance’ when the Cork-Meath feud was at its height in the late 1980s/early ’90s
Arrogance is the one thing eternally associated with Cork GAA and it means sympathy is always in short supply when the Rebels fall on hard times. There is likely to be plenty of schadenfreude across the country if Cork fall into Division 3.
But their footballers haven’t carried the Cork identity for a long time now.
They play like a team with none of the confidence that the county is renowned for.
Cork vs Meath. It will always be about the 1980s. But fashions and the world were different back then. For these two fallen giants to be relevant again, they need to show that they can move with the times.