Jimmy Geoghegan: A day of giant scrums, famous faces and harsh lessons

If you got bored at Pairc Tailteann any time on Saturday you could engage in a little game of 'Spot the Celebrity' for diversion because there were plenty of famous faces around.

Just before the contest started former Dublin manager Jim Gavin bounded up the steps of the already full stand to a seat that had obviously been kept for him by a buddy.

There was Gordon Elliott fresh from Cheltenham. Sitting in the middle of the stand was Gerry McEntee. There was, in the pressbox another former Dublin manager Pat Gilroy, who is now selector under Dessie Farrell. There were politicians to be seen including Damien English. No doubt too there were a few poets also present in the biggest crowd to be seen at the venue for years.

Further down the stand there was former Dublin player Kieran Duff who spent a good deal of his time chatting to the stream of people who came to talk to him. It seems the heroes of the past attract an aura of their own that gains in strength, rather than diminishes, as the years pass.

Duff was a member of Dublin teams that were turned over by Meath back in the 1980s but that was then, this is now. Now Meath seem a long, long way from the where Dublin reside in the football firmament.

Colm O'Rourke said as much afterwards. He pointed to the gulf saying it may take "not just months, it could take years" for Meath to catch up. Sobering words for Meath supporters to hear but sentiments they know are true.

Dublin manager Dessie Farrell diplomatically tried to be kind to Meath afterwards. He said that "when you come down to Navan you never know what you might expect, you have to be prepared for anything." He also added that while "Meath aren't where they would like to be themselves" things can quickly change. "They could be a different proposition in the summer," he added. He was being kind - and unintentionally bordering on the patronising.

The general consensus in the press box before the ball was thrown in was that the Boys in Blue would win by five or six points. That turned to to be a conservative estimation.

It was clear from early on this was going to be one of those days when Meath followers might have to look at the action unfolding through their fingers. There was an ominous aspects to Dublin's movement; to everything they did.

Only occasionally did the home fans have reason to be cheerful. One of those was when Mathew Costello's lob from out on the left produced a goal, the ball deceiving Dublin netminder David O'Hanlon who didn't have much to do all afternoon. The roar Costello's goal provoked was loud and sustained. For an instant the home fans could hope.

Legend has it that Sean Boylan, when he was Meath manager, used to say to players how opponents "eat the same potatoes as we do." He wanted to stress how we can create in our minds bigger obstacles than actually exists on the road to a particular destination. That we can build an aura around opponents that doesn't really exist. That everyone operates at the same level. That law doesn't seem to apply any more, at least when it comes to Dublin and Meath.

On Saturday it looked at times like Dublin were a different species. Their strength and conditioning created a combined physicality, a fierce intensity, that left Meath trailing in their slipstream.

One of the few events of the afternoon that brought a smile to Meath (and Dublin) supporters was a little side-show that briefly erupted in the first-half in the grass bank behind the goalposts at the town end. A Dublin player spooned a shot well wide. The ball landed on the bank and that triggered a mad rush by what seemed hundreds of youngsters, eager to gain possession. A giant, moving scrum formed.

The laughs of those in the stand could be heard as they watched the action unfold. Eventually it took the intervention of a Meath GAA official to sort it out. He bravely stepped in and took charge of the situation - and the ball.

There was no such successful retrieval after another incident in the second-half. The ball was kicked by a player as he sought to find a colleague. Instead it bounced over the perimeter wire in front of the stands and into the crowd. A young Dublin fan (decked out in the light blue) claimed possession and with the encouragement of an adult beside him he quickly tucked the ball under the concrete seat he was sitting on. That was one €50 lost to the GAA. Another little victory for the Dubs.

Still, the old Association made a neat packet from Saturday's bumper gate of about 11,000. However, many of the Meath spectators who had paid their €18 entrance fee, didn't get, or want, their money's worth. They were heading out the Brews Hill gate long before the final whistle. They had seen enough.

The 'walk out' was another big statement on a day when the great and the good, the famous and the unknown, turned up to see this latest contest between age-old rivals.