Belief is the key for Kinsella as Meath turn fortunes around

To the outside world Ruairi Kinsella is a new kid on the block. An unknown who has sprung from no where to be one of the stars of the Meath show during this glorious summer run.

Everyone who knows their football in the Royal county is well aware of Kinsella's abilities.

Man of the match in Dunshaughlin's Keegan Cup final win over Wolfe Tones last October, Kinsella is a key figure for his club and his progress with the county team is no real surprise.

Since making his championship debut for Meath against Dublin last year Kinsella had scored 1-17 in his nine appearances before Sunday.

This year in particular he has become a two-point king for the Royals and such is his stature in the game he was one of the key men highlighted by Galway for special attention at Croke Park last Sunday.

Despite being well marshalled Kinsella still chipped in with a wonderful point and produced a hard-working, no-nonsense display that kept Meath in touch when things threatened to run away from them.

Even when things started to go awry for Meath in that five minute spell late in the game when they shipped 2-3 Kinsella never had any doubt about the character of the side.

"It was unreal out there, great atmosphere. We love to make it difficult on ourselves, but we knew we had the legs. We knew the work was done. The buzz was unbelievable," insisted the Dunshaughlin man.

"When Galway scored that second goal to go three up, I'd say 90% of the country wrote us off there and then.

"However, it shows the character in the team, the belief we have, how hard we've worked all year. We just stayed calm, looked after the ball, and we went again, next ball, next ball, next ball and we came out the right side.

"You can't hear a thing out there. When the Galway goal go goes in, you can't hear a single thing, so it's all about watching for instructions off other players, trying your best to get into the best positions, and that's just exactly what we did, we stayed calm on the ball, we didn't force anything, we didn't take any silly shots, we just stayed calm."

While those on the outside looking in were losing their heads, the Meath players were keeping theirs and put full trust in their own abilities.

One of those players who took control of the situation was Jordan Morris and while the Kingscourt Stars player did endure a few frustrating moments in the opening half Kinsella insisted that the whole team has faith in their lucky number 13 to produce the magic when needed.

"Even at half-time there, I spoke to Jordan and was like, ‘keep on trying it, keep on trying it,’ because we knew what he has, and we knew it would come good eventually, and he showed it in the second half there, just unreal. He can't be stopped when he's in form like that."

So what has changed for Kinsella and this Meath team?

No one expected such a bounce in year one of a new manager, but Kinsella thinks the belief that Robbie Brennan and his backroom team have instilled in the players has been key to the turnaround in fortunes that saw Meath lose every game in last year's All-Ireland series to now standing just 70 minutes away from an All-Ireland final.

"I think the main difference is belief. The boys who've come in have just instilled that belief into us,” insisted Kinsella.

"I feel like over the years we've had the quality, we've had the players, but the belief just wasn't there.

"I think we didn't have the confidence to think, ‘oh, yeah, we can beat these,’ whereas this year it's a completely different story, we've gone into every game thinking, ‘yeah, why can't we win this game?’

"We've shown that so far in the Championship this year and hopefully we keep that going," concluded Kinsella who must be a certainty for an All-star nomination.