'We decided we would be more adventurous, shake off the shackles and attack and attack and attack'

TAILTEANN CUP ANALYSIS

Admittedly Meath are not where they want to be. The reality of the GAA world now is that the Royals are well down the line of succession and far from becoming Kings again, but Colm O'Rourke is unwavering in his belief.

The Meath manager has 100 per cent faith in his charges. He believes that it is only a matter of time before Meath will rise again and sit on the throne of power.

However, O'Rourke is no one's fool and he is well aware that there is no short term fixes to what have been long term, problems for Meath GAA over the last two decades.

Saturday's win over Tipperary, Meath's first competitive success since the NFL Div 2 victory over Clare back on 5th February, is the first, tentative step on that long journey that O'Rourke believes will have a fruitful end.

“Very happy to get that win. It’s February since we won a game and we have had a lot of serious setbacks since that but in fairness to the lads they have been great, they have work hard every night of the week that we have asked them.

“It could have been a huge blow after losing to Offaly but the following Wednesday night every single player on the panel was there, everyone was willing to get stuck into the competition there was no such thing as anyone opting out or saying we don’t think this is worth taking part in.

"I’m delighted with the commitment, they are a great bunch and I don’t think any other Meath team I’ve been involved in had any more commitment.

"We are playing the long game here, we are very patient with these fellas. I think six made their championship debuts against Offaly and three more played their first championship game tonight, so they are a young team and if people are patient with them we have a big future.

“We have pace in our team and have skill, we are just lacking a little bit in some other areas but when you have such a willing group of young players I think the road can take us a long way. It is going to take months and years rather than weeks but we will get there."

Part of Meath's problems in their six-game winless streak had been slow starts and that was something O'Rourke had focused on in the build up to Saturday's second tier clash with Tipperary.

A lack of confidence was suggested as one reason for Meath's nervous beginnings and while the manager acknowledged that that may well be the case he prefaced the opinion by suggesting Meath players haven't had much to aspire to emulate in recent years.

“That (slow starts) is something we targeted, we talked and talked about the fact that we started poorly in a lot of games including against Offaly.

"The lads themselves talked about how they were going to get out of the traps quickly and then after 10 or 12 minutes I was looking at the scoreboard and we hadn’t got a point and I was wondering what is going on here.

"From about 20 minutes gone the lads settled down, there is a lack of confidence about a lot of young players, but once they settled and got into a rhythm I think they performed quite well.

“If you look back at Meath teams over the last decade there haven’t been too many bright days and a lot of these players have grown up not seeing Meath win anything.

"It is over 20 years since Meath were in an All-Ireland final and it was brought home to me one night when I asked three lads what year they were born and they were all born in 2000.

"Meath were in the All-Ireland in 2001 and the last final win was 1999 so these players have grown up with no tradition of Meath winning anything. Previous to that lads grew up with their heroes, Trevor Giles, John McDermott and Brian Stafford and those sort of players.

"These lads have had to create their own bit of history."

After an uninspiring opening have during which it took Meath almost 13 minutes to score was O'Rourke inclined to issue a tongue-lashing to his underperforming players during their half-time debrief?

“I never had strong words with anyone in my life, I don’t believe in that sort of thing," he said.

"Our dressing room is a quiet dressing room, we try and assess what is going on quietly and talk about solutions.

"We had difficulties with Tipp’s kick outs, they had a few variations. When we forced them long we did quite well but not with the short ones.

"Then in the second half we pressed up higher we cut out some of their kick outs and got good scores from them, but it took quite a while to get to grips with that and we also decided that we would be more adventurous and fellas would shake off the shackles and attack and attack and attack. It did work well.

“Sean Coffey and Donal Keogan did create a lot of the openings which were finished by Aaron Lynch, Donal Lenihan, Jordan Morris and Thomas O’Reilly who came on and did well. Maybe we went into a more attacking mode in the second half.

"Jack Flynn had injury problems with his ankle and he has also been doing exams. I’m sure it is the same with lads from other counties, a lot of lads doing exams, I can recall when I was doing third level exams they drain your energy.

"Jack had a few exams this week, so had Cathal Hickey and Conor Gray had one this morning so we were trying to juggle around with lads who had exams this week and next so that none of them got a full game."

With the losing streak broken Meath can look forward to the rest of the Tailteann Cup with plenty of ambition and confidence. O'Rourke is not going to take Waterford for granted next Saturday, but he knows the final game of the group against Down will be a massive test and he is sure Meath will continue to improve.

“Never was in the place (Fraher Field, Waterford's home venue) before, we are looking forward to it already. We will give Waterford total respect and put out the best possible team and we will be looking to win the match and move on," admitted O'Rourke before giving a rundown on the injury situation.

"Jack O’Connor came off with an injury, Ciaran Caulfield has a hamstring problem, Eoghan Frayne has a shoulder problem, we would love to get some game time into players like that, hopefully we will in the next few games. Again we will be going for a strong team down there; we won’t be doing anything silly.

“We will be even better by the time of the Down match than we were tonight and we might even have a couple of players back from injury.

"I am quite happy and more impressed with what we saw in the last three weeks since I got involved with the team. Reaction to a defeat that always tells something about the individuals and players as a group, so I have to say I am very satisfied with their reaction."

Some people have been rather disparaging in their remarks about the Tailteann Cup and O'Rourke was dismissive of Donal Og Cusack's opinion that the competition was "a sort of Gaelic football Grand National for disappointed also rans"

“The gentleman involved I wouldn’t pass the slightest remarks about what he would say about anything. I didn’t find it in any way insulting; I thought it was a reflection of him rather than anything else," insisted O'Rourke.

"The Tailteann Cup is a great competition and did a lot for teams like Westmeath last year, Cavan and so many other teams.

“We didn’t want to find ourselves in this position, finishing sixth in Div 2 we thought we would be in the top group, but so be it this is what the competition is about now and we are fully immersed in it and our players are taking it very seriously.

"As is said after the Offaly match our history and tradition of winning is no guarantee of success now. I don’t suffer from any delusions of grandeur and neither does any of the lads involved. We will give every respect to the Tailteann Cup and try and win it if we can."

O'Rourke was asked about the Royal tradition and the similarities between where Meath find themselves now and before they won the Centenary Cup in 1984 and the possibility that the Tailteann Cup might provide a similar launchpad.

“I would love to think that would be the case, I hope history rewrites itself," he said.

"A lot of these players have been kicked around a bit. Things haven’t gone well for them at underage and senior level so they are lacking in confidence so a few wins will do them the world of good.

"They are great lads. We are trying to get the best out of them and they are trying to get the best out of themselves, and they will get better," concluded the manager who was summonsed back to the dressing room by Donal Keogan who had been waiting patiently for the press conference to end.