Meath's gritty willingness to graft not enough against the Sky Blues
Some days players just have to hold their hands up and admit they were defeated by more accomplished opponents.
Today was one of those days for Meath when they lost out 1-7 to 1-23 to Dublin in the Leinster Senior Camogie Championship at Trim.
Individually some of the Meath players were as good if not better than their direct opponents but collectively, as a unit, Dublin were better. Considerably better.
The scoreline says a lot but not everything about this game. The scoreline doesn't, for instance, give any indication of the kind of heroic effort the Meath players put in - despite the hefty defeat.
It's doesn't give any clue about just how well the Meath defence played particularly goalkeeper Tara Murphy who made a string of super saves.
It doesn't highlight the kind of effort, for instance, that the home full-back line of Sophia Payne, Claire Coffey and Rachel O'Neill put in; the courage they showed, the refusal to yield under immense, unrelenting pressure.
Nor does the scoreline indicate adequately just how good, how polished Dubline were.
The team in sky blue perform at a higher level in the league and it showed in this game. The Dubliners' passing, movement, stickwork, their score-creating and score-taking was something to behold. Impressive.
The sharp, accomplished visitors set a hot pace from the start and continued to turn up the heat from then on to the finish line.
They led 0-11 to 0-5 at the interval and pushed on from there with the supremely talented Aisling Maher inflicting a lot of pain on Meath with her over all contribution,
Maher hit nine points, including three '45s' in a tour de force display as her team steadily went through the gears.
They got to a stage where they were humming along like a Formula One car on the Monte Carlo circuit with others such as Aishling O'Neill, Aisling Gannon, Claire Gannon, Aine Rafter, Aoife Heffernan and Orla Grey all hitting fine scores from play.
Meath could have collapsed at the wicket. They didn't and for that they deserve great praise. They stayed in the fight helped greatly by their rugged collective spirit and Murphy's heroics.
The best of her saves arrived midway through the second-half. Maher stepped up to take a free about 30 metres out. Everyone assumed she would go for a point.
She didn't. Instead she unleashed an exocet of a shot. The ball looked destined for the top corner. Murphy, however, had other thoughts. She dived acrobatically to her right and turned it away for a '45.'
Soon after Murphy saved a point-blank shot from Leah Doherty. Again a goal looked certainly. Again the Kilmessan netminder had other ideas.
Aoife Minogue didn't get too many chances to go on her surging runs from midfield but she typified the team's display and kept battling - and on 43 minutes she got some reward for her toil.
Meath won a free about 25 metres out. Again the assumption was she would go for a point. Instead she took a breath, lifted the ball and drove it with real venom and power to the Dublin net.
The Royals could only muster three points from play over the hour. They were neatly taken scores too from the battling Cliodhna O'Riordan, Emma Hanafin and Abbye Donnelly.
However that meagre tally says a lot too about the kind of problems they had in securing ball and converting them into scores.
Grace Coleman was called ashore just before the break and it was a surprise. She is a warrior too. She mustered two scores from frees and put in a lot of hard graft.
She, however, like the rest of her colleagues found herself up against an unstoppable force.
The Meath players must have felt like they were trying to contain a whirlwind; to hold back the tide and they were in a way.
SCORERS
Dublin - Aisling Maher 0-9 three '45s', two frees; Grace O'Shea 1-3; Aishling O'Neill 0-3; Aisling Gannon 0-4; Claire Gannon 0-1; Aoife Heffernan 0-1; Louise O'Shea 0-1; Orla Grey 0-1.
Meath - Aoife Minogue 1-2 frees; Grace Coleman 0-2 frees; Cliodhna O'Riordan 0-1; Emma Hanafin 0-1; Abbye Donnelly 0-1.
TEAMS
Dublin - Eabha Mooney; Zoe Crouch, Abbey Ryan, Christine Shanahan; Claire Gannon, Eve O'Brien, Hannah O'Dea; Aoife Heffernan, Gaby Couch; Muireann Kelleher, Aisling Maher, Louise O'Shea; Grace O'Shea, Aisling Gannon, Aishling O'Neill. Subs - Elyse Jamieson-Murphy for Heffernan 38 mins, Orla Grey for L O'Shea 46m, Leah Butler for Couch 49m, Issy Davis for Gannon 53m.
Meath - Tara Murphy; Sophia Payne, Claire Coffey, Rachel O'Neill; Tracy King, Ellen Burke, Leah Devine; Grace Coleman, Aoife Minogue; Cliodhna O'Riordan, Emma Hanafin, Emma O'Connell; Amy Gaffney, Abbye Donnelly, Olivia O'Halloran. Subs - Susan Kealy for Coleman 28 mins, Niamh Daly for O'Connell half-time, Lauren Robinson for Devine 47m, Robyn Dunne for O'Halloran 56m, Laura O'Neill for Burke 58m.