Meade revelling in midfield role

Since being re-located to a midfield role Brian Meade has become one of Meath's most influential players and last Saturday night he produced another magnificent performance to help keep the midfield threat from Limerick quiet. The Munster men came into the game with a great reputation around the middle and Meade was well aware of their threat, but he was quick to deflect the praise off himself. "There is a great feeling in the dressing room, but we made hard work of it because myself and Paddy (O'Rourke) had a bit of a mix-up for their second goal," said Meade. "However, we did hold on for a win and we had said before that it didn't matter if we won by 21 points or by one point, it was winning that was important. "We knew Limerick would be tough and we knew in the second-half they were really going to come at us. We never changed our game and we kept trying to play football. "In the last 10 minutes it was like a training session back in November, it was a real slog, but thank God we came out on the right side of it and we back in Croke Park now. I wouldn't say myself and Nigel (Crawford) didn't let Limerick get on top in midfield. The half-backs and half-forwards did great work getting in there for the breaks. Nigel has been playing great stuff all year and he makes life a lot easier for me. "There is no point in saying we played well, I'd say it was more the other lads made us look good by winning all the breaks." Meath have enjoyed a couple of easy games in the run up to last Saturday's encounter, but Meade feels that the win over Limerick will help the Royal County men improve. "In the last few games we have had them won early on and we were never under any pressure, but today's game was much different and it should bring us on in leaps and bounds," he enthused. "Being in Croke Park is where we want to be. We had a hiccup against Dublin and to get back to Croke Park and to be still playing in August is great, we would have settled for that last November. "We don't really know that much about Mayo because we have only been taking one game at a time. I'm sure we'll sit down this week and look at them and do our homework. We won't fear any one from now on. "If we can keep our work rate up and play well then the only team that will beat us is ourselves, but hopefully that won't happen," concluded the Rathkenny man.