Boylan tight-lipped on Meath vacancy

SEAN Boylan was keeping his cards close to his chest about the Meath managerial vacancy. When questioned about the issue on Sunday after his Ireland team had played New South Wales in a Gaelic football exhibition in Sydney, the Dunboyne man said he had given it 'no thought.' And when asked what would he do if he was approached in the morning by the Meath Co Board, Boylan laughed and said that in such a scenario he 'would wait until tomorrow.' Meath player Kevin Reilly expressed the hope that the vacancy would be filled swiftly. 'Before we think about next year we need to get a manager,' stated the Navan O"Mahonys player. 'It"s been dragging on for too long and needs to be sorted out now, for once and for all.' On the issue of Ireland"s success in the International Rules series, Boylan was far more forthcoming. The pressure was on both Boylan and his Aussie counterpart Mick Malthouse to avoid a repeat of the scenes of 2006 and Boylan admitted that this was more important than the actual result. 'The future of the series had to be the bigger picture. I tell you why, if it wasn"t it would have been very selfish,' stated Boylan. 'There are a lot of lads who want to represent their country and there are not too many outlets for the AFL players here or the GAA at home, they don"t get too many chances to represent their country. 'It"s been a great occasion, a great tour, very successful and at the end of the day a couple of things has come out of it. 'Sportsmanship, great football and camaraderie. The camaraderie between the Australian lads and ourselves was just a sight to behold. 'It was great to witness that type of intensity on the field of play and yet great camaraderie afterwards, it was fantastic.' Boylan himself had shipped some criticism over the selection of fellow Dunboyne man David Gallagher as goalkeeper because he is not currently playing at inter-county level. With Gallagher being one of Ireland"s stand-out players, Boylan sung his praise and also of Kevin Reilly. 'I only managed for 23 years so what do I know? 'We had no fear about David and particularly the selectors had no fear about David. 'That was their choice and I think everyone saw what he"s like, he confirmed the faith we had in him. 'Kevin had a very good series and he did the last time as well. Hugh Kenny managed the unde-rage squad down here before as well and Kevin was on that and he did very well then too. 'The lads who play the game are noble men and no more so than David and Kevin who represented our own county with distinction.' The four time All-Ireland winning manager was also full of praise for his backroom team. 'You saw the intensity that was there over the two weekends, you saw the skill factor that was there and you don"t compete against the best unless you"ve played well. 'To men like Hugh Kenny from Wicklow, 'Bomber" Liston, Anthony Tohill, I can"t tell you how much I"m indebted to them for the amount of work they did for me. 'From home we"ve Eoin Clarke from Navan as doctor, Frank Foley from Trim is the physio, Mocky Regan is our masseur from Dunboyne, also from Dunboyne is Eoin Lynch who is our kitman. They"ve done great work,' concluded Boylan. Reilly made his Rules debut in 2006 and was thrilled to have come out on the winning side this time around. 'I"m delighted with the win, it was the purpose of the tour and luckily we achieved that. It was great for the series too that we got a win. The Australians had won the last two so it was important that we showed we can win.' While there was no repeat of the ugly scenes of the 2006 series, Reilly feels there was no let up in intensity, just a better focus among players. 'With regards to the intensity, and this is something I was actually talking to Sean about on Sunday, the game was lightning fast, but the skill levels were up an awful lot on two years ago. 'That"s the big thing I noticed. Players from both teams focused a lot more on the skills rather than needless petty stuff. 'There was great camaraderie within the squad. We were together for eight weeks on Friday nights and Saturdays around Dunboyne between training and trials and lads got on great. 'It"s great to be playing with the cream of the GAA and there"s no higher honour within the GAA than to represent your country,' admitted the 22-year-old. Victory on Friday saw celebrations get underway for the Irish squad, but they were restrained for Reilly who will fly home on Thursday before facing into the white heat of a Leinster club SFC game with O"Mahonys against Westmeath champions Castledaly at Pairc Tailteann on Sunday.