Meath go into final as rank outsiders

Meath supporters will be hoping their team won’t be like lambs to the slaughter when they take on Dublin in Sunday’s Leinster SFC final at Croke Park.

Mick O’Dowd’s side are rank outsiders to defeat Dublin. The reigning All-Ireland champions have been priced at 1/7 to win, unbackable odds that suggest Meath have in the words of RTE’s GAA pundit Joe Brolly “no chance” of taking home the Delaney Cup.

Meath supporters looking for some source of optimism will hark back to 2010 when, with Eamonn O’Brien at the helm, they achieved a shock result defeating Dublin in the Leinster SFC semi-final by a whopping 5-9 to 0-13. Since then however, Dublin have resumed their supremacy.

Meath go into Sunday’s game in the happy position of having Mickey Newman and Kevin Reilly available for selection after they came through recent injury scares.

Newman was ruled out of the Leinster SFC semi-final with a hamstring problem while Reilly sustained a knee injury in the closing stages of the game with the Lilywhites.

“We have a full panel to choose from and there are no fresh injury scares,” Mick O’Dowd happily declared.

“Training has been going well and all the players are eagerly looking forward to the final now.'

Jimmy Geoghegan