Immense pride despite disappointing defeat in Birr

As the Meath players stood gathered in a circle listening to words of consolation from manager Eamonn Murray and coach Paul Garrigan their desolation was clear to see.

Pipped at the post by Cork in the opening game of the All-Ireland SFC lamenting on an opportunity lost, Meath were frustrated and angry as they held their immediate postmortem.

As well as that disappointment, they should also have been immensely proud.

Just six years ago Meath played Cork in the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers and were beaten by 40 points. That was a black day for Meath football and the following year they surrendered their senior status after two heavy losses to Westmeath and a drubbing by Dublin.

It has been a long way back for Meath.

Successive managers have come and gone, tried and failed, but since Eamonn Murray took over and brought in Paul Garrigan, Paddy Dowling, Shane Wall and, more recently, Mark Brennan and Eugene Eivers, fortunes have been on the rise.

Off the back of successive championship winning minor sides Meath have come on in leaps and bounds, and while Saturday's loss to Cork might still be raw and regrets will scatter around the head, Meath can have plenty to be proud of.

"These girls certainly didn't let anybody down here today. If anything they further enhanced their reputations by running another of the top teams in the country very close," Murray told the Meath Chronicle.

"You have to remember where Meath football is coming from and where these girls have brought us. This is a very special group of players and we are by no means finished yet, absolutely not.

"Sure they are disappointed today, and rightly so. They felt they deserved something out of the game, but like any other defeat we have suffered in the last few years we will learn from this and bring the hurt into the next round," said Murray.

While Murray was extremely proud of his players he did admit to a regret or two. Moments in the game where Lady Luck deserted his side completely, incidents where an inch one way or another might have delivered a different outcome.

"We certainly didn't look out of our depth there today and I think we looked every inch a strong senior side, but we saw just how important experience is at this level," said the Boardsmill man.

"That Cork side have been around for a long time, they are serial winners and we pinned them to their collars. They were hanging on for dear life there in the end.

"The concession of the goal 30 seconds before half-time was a huge hammer blow and we never really recovered from that score.

"There were other incidents in the game that went against us. Bridgetta (Lynch) had a goal disallowed which would have put us ahead, but I don't know how they can say it was a square ball because to me it looked like she ran across the goals to get onto the end of the move.

"Five minutes after that Bridgetta rattled the crossbar with the goalie stranded. We also missed a few frees that we wouldn't normally miss and we dropped a few other efforts short, so that type of stuff is frustrating.

"We thought coming here that everything would have to go in our favour and that Cork would have to have an off day, but looking back on it now I'd say it was the other way around.

"I'd say that most things went in Cork's favour and there was certainly areas of the game where we know we can do better. I suppose that is the huge positive we will take from today, we know we are capable of better."

While not many gave Meath much of a hope travelling to Birr last Saturday, Meath will now be hyped up ahead of the second round game against Tipperary on Friday, but again Murray is taking nothing for granted.

"We played Tipperary in our first year involved and they beat us in the All-Ireland semi-final. Two years later they beat us in the group stages and then again in the All-Ireland final, so we know just how difficult it will be against them.

"People are talking that we are favourites for that game, but I don't know how they are coming to that conclusion. Tipperary are an experienced senior side now and have loads of class players.

"We know that we will have to be at our best to have a chance and we will have to take every opportunity that arises.

"That game will be a crucial one, but we need to keep learning and keep improving.

"I've no doubt that the girls will get over this disappointment today and they will work savagely hard at training over the next couple of weeks.

"This is why we have worked so hard over the last few years. We want to be playing Cork, Tipperary, Mayo, Dublin, Armagh, Tyrone every year, we want to pit ourselves against the best, it's the only way to improve," concluded the Meath manager.