‘I imagine they will probably come in as favourites but that suits us in a way’
Having made his debut towards the tail end of Andy McEntee’s reign as Meath manager, Daithi McGowan has become an integral part of Colm O’Rourke’s side, writes Tom Gannon.
The Ratoath man has started in eight out of Meath’s nine competitive games between the league and championship in 2024 and now he is looking forward to the All-Ireland series and the challenges that await against Louth, Kerry and Monaghan.
Despite coming out on top of Longford, Meath let their concentration slip towards the end of their opening championship clash. McGowan spoke about the disappointment within the group after that game with Longford but went on to speak about the positives that Meath took from the Dublin defeat and detailed why the scoreline didn’t reflect the efforts of Meath on the day.
“Against Longford, we came out seven-point winners and we weren’t overly happy. We were in control of that match but we ended up conceding 3-12 which wasn’t great," he told the Meath Chronicle.
"Going into the game against Dublin, we had a certain level of confidence that we would have been able to put it up to them. The scoreline probably reflected the second half but in terms of the overall game, we were closer than what the scoreline suggested.
McGowan says that at this moment in time, Meath's full focus is on their opening round clash with neighbours Louth.
Louth somewhat shocked the GAA community and put the cat amongst the pigeons with a very strong performance in defeat to Dublin in this year’s Leinster final. The Ratoath man is looking forward to the challenge of facing the Wee county and says that a win against Louth would be a massive momentum builder for the Royals.
“We are not looking too much at the other two games at the moment. Our full focus is on the Louth game. It is a huge game for us and we pretty much need to win it if we have aspirations of getting out of the group.
"It’s the closest the two sides have been in a big championship match since probably the Leinster final in 2010. They are riding the crest of a wave after that performance in the Leinster final so it will be tough.
"Everyone in the group is full of confidence though that we can put in a big performance against them. I imagine they will probably come in as favourites but that suits us in a way. We will put in the work and try and put in a performance and we will see where it takes us.
“I don’t think Louth’s performance against Dublin changes a huge amount in terms of how we approach them. Purely because their game plan was quite obvious, it was to drop off the kickouts, get into their defensive shape and try to nullify Dublin. I don’t think they would play the same way against us.
"In terms of our outlook, we still are going in with a good level of confidence. We know that they have dangerous forwards but so do we. If anything, we can take some sort of optimism out of their performance against Dublin, in the fact that if they can put in that sort of performance, so can we. I don’t think there is a huge amount between the two sides. It’ll come down to who is better prepared and more up for it on the day. If we can get a win, it will give us a bit of momentum in the group.”
Following their contest with Louth, Meath will welcome Kerry to Navan in their second group fixture. McGowan reflected on the Super 8’s clash between the two sides in 2019 and is hoping that the current Meath team can at least put in a similar performance while being acutely aware of the depth of talent that Kerry possesses.
“We did take some confidence from the performance that Clare put up against Kerry. However, we are not naïve. We know what Kerry can do and it's well-publicised that there is serious talent within the Kerry team. We are looking forward to bringing Kerry to Navan though. You look back at the Super 8s in 2019 and you see the crowd that Meath brought to that occasion. Meath put it up to Kerry that day and we would be hoping to do the same. We are looking forward to it and we will be looking to get a result.”
Meath finish off the group with a clash against Monaghan. While Meath supporters will be hoping that at least a place in the preliminary quarter-final will be secured before this game throws in, McGowan is confident that Meath can be competitive against the Ulster side.
“We would hope that we can be competitive against Monaghan. They have probably struggled this year but they did reach an All-Ireland semi last year so you can’t imagine that they have declined that much in the space of 12 months.
"Our focus is on the games that come before that and especially the Louth clash but I’m sure when we do look at the Monaghan game, we are going to respect what they have and their threats. We won’t fear them and we will be looking to make it competitive and put in a good performance against them.”