Captain Jones hoping to right a lot of wrongs

PART ONE OF OUR TWO-PART INTERVIEW WITH THE MEATH CAPTAIN

By the time Meath rock up to Inniskeen Grattens to take on Louth in the opening game of the All-Ireland SFC series it will he 41 days since the Leinster SFC quarter-final humbling by Dublin and Ronan Jones just cannot wait to get back to the playing fields.

That 16-point shellacking still weighs heavy on the mind of the Meath captain. He certainly has regrets about how that contest panned out, but he believes Meath have used the month long break well to rally and he feels the panel have benefitted hugely from the training camp in Portugal.

"It (a training camp in Portugal) always sounds a little more glamorous than maybe the reality of it. It was long days, hard work, but it gave ample opportunities to have a few conversations that maybe you would miss out as some lads are coming to training straight from work or heading home to families straight after," said Jones.

"It gave lads a chance to talk about things outside of football and inside of football that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise had.

"Obviously, there's the physical element too in the work you get done and I think that's brilliant. A lot of the top teams are doing that every single year and you can tell how well conditioned they are. If we were to get that, maybe just shout out to the Co Board, to let us do it more often.

"There's a huge bank of work that gets done and it's great to have the time together.

"It was a tough few weeks after the Dublin game, a lot of hard conversations were had, but then it was shoulder to the wheel time and get on with things.

"The last week or so has been great. Lads love playing summer football, the ground's getting harder, the ball's moving faster and it's kind of suiting us. So we're in good spirits going into next weekend. Why wouldn't you be?

"Three good tests ahead of us and ultimately we want to see where we're at.

"I'd have preferred not to have had the break. I'd have preferred to have been in the Leinster final, but the break has given lads a chance to get back from injury.

"It gave us a chance to assess our set-up and take a look at a few things. I would have preferred to have kept playing for another few weeks in Leinster, but ultimately we made good use of the time.

"I think a lot of us were disappointed personally after the (Dublin) game.

"You can talk about the team as a whole, but I think a lot of us felt we let ourselves down and didn't go out there and perform to our best, it is a tough one to take.

"A lot of us were looking at ourselves and trying to put things right for a few weeks after. It was a tough two weeks.

"Then once you're eyeing up who you could be potentially playing and where it could be, the lads just got on with it then.

"We were away in the training camp when the draw was made and everyone was looking forward to getting back playing. So, regardless of who you were playing, where you were playing and when you were playing, it was just great that we were going to have another three more games to try and put things right.

"There's familiar foes in our group and there's unfamiliar foes. We've played Louth couple of times in the last year and it's going to be a really tough battle.

"I've personally never played Kerry in seven or eight years of playing so I'm very much looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to a nice sunny day here in Navan hopefully. That will bring excitement.

"Then Monaghan is a team we've played maybe here or there and we'll know little bits about each other, but we'll obviously have to brush up on our homework on them.

"As things go, we were as happy as anyone could be with these draws. There's no easy games in this competition. It's just about figuring out where we can get to and trying to prove it over the three games."

Before the glamour tie against Kerry Jones is very much focused on next Saturday's game against Louth and he is hopeful of a positive result and accepts that that is the game Meath supporters will identify as one to win.

"There's pressure on every game. Louth probably gave a better account of themselves against Dublin than we did. I don't know what the odds are, but I'd imagine they're favourites going into this game," admitted Jones.

"I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm sure everyone in the Louth dressing room is very much looking forward to it.

"With three teams coming out, you want to ideally pick up an early win, which for us is a win against Louth, have a shot against Kerry and then see what happens against Monaghan.

"I can guarantee you there's the exact same conversation being had in the Louth dressing room. We're going to go out there and give it our best.

"We've been working on a lot of individual elements as well as a collective, so we are looking forward to it now," said the captain.