It’s the hope that kills you
Optimism greeted McEntee appointment as Meath boss but mediocre results leave his tenure in its final throes
THE problem with unfulfilled hope is that when given an airing it never dates well. On the eve of his first Championship as Meath manager in 2017, Andy McEntee was brimful of enthusiasm – the kind that allowed him to make this prediction.
‘Dublin have set the bar, it’s up to others to follow,’ he said.
‘Meath are putting structures in place and things have improved a lot. Everybody’s improving.
‘Dublin have probably stolen a march and do have some natural advantages, but ultimately they’ll be responsible for raising the standards in Leinster.’
Six years on, as he approaches what will almost certainly be the end, that optimism seems more than a little misplaced.
Next spring, Division 1 will be a Leinster-free zone for the first time after the double relegation this spring of Dublin and Kildare, who just so happened to show the way for the rest.
Five of the six relegation places in this season’s League were filled by teams from the province.
It invited the jibe that there was no need for a second-tier championship when the GAA already had one – the Leinster SFC with friends.
And Meath’s improvement? McEntee’s success in his final year will be sourced in relief rather than achievement, in keeping Meath out of the Tailteann Cup, which had looked a live prospect until his team finally snapped a winless run in the fifth round of the Allianz League against Cork.
So where did it all go wrong? And how can we be so certain that this is the end?
It is better to take the second question first because the answer is easier found.
Last autumn a threeman committee who undertook a routine review of McEntee’s tenure were left so underwhelmed that they made no recommendation and the board’s management committee – by the odd vote in 15 – decided it was time for him to go.
Those who opposed him were never going to win but, in a way, neither was McEntee.
It brought out the fighter and campaigner in him – it is in the DNA given that his late brother Shane was a TD and niece Helen is the Minister for Justice – and when the vote was put before clubs, he had twice as many as the board’s leadership.
But it only bought him time and now that has all but run out. There will be no need for a review at the end of this season, just a brand new appointment process.
He would probably like to stay, but with several of the board leadership offside to go with a perceived spiky manner, he has possibly fewer friends now than when he started out with impeccable credentials that included taking the Meath minors to an All-Ireland final and Ballyboden to an All-Ireland title.
He has had spats with the media, simmering tension with some clubs over the release of their players and, last year, effectively forced the hand of county legend Bernard Flynn to stand down as Under 20 manager on player access issues. In
truth, intercounty management has never been in the winning friends and influencing people business, but it has always been in the results one.
And that is McEntee’s problem as he is in danger of leaving Meath exactly where he inherited them from Mick O’Dowd who, in his final season in 2016, ended his League campaign with two wins, two draws and three defeats – the mirror image of what Meath posted this spring.
It has not been completely static over those six years – the highlight came in 2019 when he led Meath back to Division 1 for the first time since 2006, and followed up, coming from the preliminary round stage in Leinster, by reaching the Super 8s later that summer.
In the latter, they were placed in the ultimate group of death against Donegal, Kerry and Mayo and while their average losing margin ran at nine points a game, they hung in in all three games until the final quarter.
That should have been a starting point rather than the high point. It was not so much their immediate relegation in 2020 that hurt but their failure to get back up last year that ultimately did for McEntee.
He failed in not being able to match Kildare and become Leinster’s second team, and the moment it all probably went south was last June when they lost by a goal to the Lilywhites in the Division 2 promotion play-off in Newbridge.
Meath needed to capitalise on their previous top-flight experience by getting back there to make the most of it, but instead in the last 12 months the gap between the two counties has become a chasm. Should McEntee take the hit for that? Only to a point. Had Meath won that game last year, the likelihood is they would still not have made as good a fist of the spring as Kildare did – despite their relegation – as the Lilywhites appeared rejuvenated by Glenn Ryan’s stellar management team.
Much has been made of the fact that he has lost his three Championship games against Dublin by an aggregate of 43 points, as if this qualifies as an indication of his failure rather than the reality that they were all accidents waiting to happen.
If no one else in the country, including Kerry, has been able to match up to Dublin, how could the current Meath team be expected to on the strength of a rivalry that now belongs in the folklore archives?
More importantly – and this goes to the core of where it has gone wrong for McEntee – is that resurrecting Meath as a top force is beyond the gift of any one individual, because it has been a collective failure.
In the circumstances, his record is no worse than ordinary – today marks his 65th competitive game, winning 27 to post a 41 per cent win-rate – whereas Meath’s collapse has been extraordinary.
This comes on top of an extensive talent trawl – he has given gametime to 78 players over the past six years – but this has been his most settled season by a distance, blooding just three debutants.
It would be cruel if he had to let go just as he arrived at the point of settling on the team, but in reality – outside of the bare ripples of transition this year – there is no real evidence that this is the case.
He simply has not been in a position to conjure up what does not exist.
While last year’s All-Ireland minor victory provides hard evidence of the county getting its underage structures right, it is coming from a very low base.
Not only is it 2001 since Meath last won a Leinster Under 21/20 title, in the intervening 21 years they have only made it to the final once.
And, in the last five years, they have met Dublin four times in what is the key developmental grade and have been hit with 14 goals for their troubles.
So how, exactly, does one tell young players to discard all that mental scar tissue and convince them things are going to get better somehow when they grow up?
After this year, that is likely to be a question for someone other than McEntee to answer.
But those who believe there is someone out there who can provide that answer are just dabbling in hope that will not be realised.
There will be no need for a review this year, just a new appointment process