Frayne hoping to make it third time lucky

ALL-IRELAND SFC PREVIEW Meath captain aiming to shoot down the Tribesmen

There aren't too many 22 year olds captaining senior teams in any sport of code around the world.

When Robbie Brennan took over the role as Meath manager one of his first calls was to get some of the more experienced players, who had stepped away from the panel, to come back in.

When Bryan Menton, Seamus Lavin, Cillian o'Sullivan, Jack Flynn, and others, answered that call, Brennan then fired a bolt from the blue - he named a 22-year-old as his captain and a 21-year-old as the vice-captain.

Eoghan Frayne insists he didn't have to be asked twice when Brennan floated the idea of the leadership role to him.

"It (the captain role) definitely came quicker than expected. I probably didn't see myself as captain. Maybe down the line, it was a goal of mine to captain Meath. From being minor and 20s captain, it would have been a natural progression," said Frayne when speaking ast the launch of RTE's summer schedule of sport on Monday.

"I feel that I'd always wanted to be captain and I would have been working towards that, but then when it came along, I was obviously shocked that it came so soon.

"I didn't have to think twice about it. I was always going to say yes. It's obviously a great honour for me, especially when I'm 22.

"When Robbie asked me to be captain, I was delighted. It's been a great honour so far.

"We have good lads around me as well. I'm kind of conscious that I didn't want to get caught up in the whole captaincy sort of thing and have it affect my performance.

"At the end of the day, my own performance is the most important thing. I still have to focus on myself and get the best out of myself, but also trying to get the best out of other lads as well.

"There's some good lads in there, like some older fellas, like Keogie (Donal Keogan), Mento (Bryan Menton) and Cillian (O'Sullivan) that have really helped me as well and they've taken the pressure off a lot.

"So it's been a team effort. It's not just laid all on me. There's good lads in there helping out as well and everyone's driving it, it's not just left to me. So that's definitely important."

Next Sunday Frayne will lead out Meath for just his third game in Croke Park. He has yet to experience that winning feeling in GAA HQ, but he is looking forward to the challenge Galway will provide.

"It's a good draw. We're happy enough. It's going to be a tough game. I don't think there's any easy games no matter what draw you got," said Frayne.

"It's going to be a good test. We haven't obviously been in an All-Ireland quarter-final in a good few years so we're really looking forward to it now.

"I just saw the highlights (of Galway's win over Down) on The Sunday Game last night. I haven't fully looked into it yet. We'll get stuck into them this week and look over them and see what we can do.

"We would have taken anyone. I don't think there's much between any of the teams that are left.

"It's harder to call games now with the new rules than it was before. I think it's brought teams down to an equal level. "It's obviously exciting times for us. It's great to be in an All-Ireland quarter-final."

The new rules have certainly revitalised the game of Gaelic football and Frayne is certainly enjoying reaping the rewards of the two-pointers. Howeve, he insists that there isn't a whole lot of time devoted to practising two-pointers as there are other aspects of the game that are equally important.

"Luckily enough we have some good players on our team and the new rules suit them," said the Summerhill man.

"We have a good few lads who can shoot from distance that are accurate at two-pointers, which helps massively.

"We don't really spend much time at training working on two-pointers, we're just lucky we have lads that can do that. "Other teams have different strengths that the new rules would favour, but we're just lucky enough to have some good skilful natural footballers and I think the new rules shows off the skills of the players which we're lucky enough to have.

"I'd definitely keep them (two-pointers) anyway! It's not that big of a kick and if there's a slight breeze, it's actually not that hard to score them if you're any way accurate at all.

"Even watching other games, they're exciting, and it's great to see lads shooting from distance.

"Under the old rules you would have seen a lot of lateral passing, no-one would take on shots from distance, they would have played the percentages and try to work the ball in but now you just have lads pulling the trigger from 35, 40 yards out. I think it's great.

"We play it as we see it, but I think there's more important things than spending a lot of time kicking two pointers in training.

"Luckily enough we have lads who can actually kick them so we don't actually spend that much time working on them, there's so other more important parts of the game.

"Kick-outs now are huge and winning breaking ball and stuff like that, so we wouldn't spend a massive amount of time on them.

"It depends on the scenario that's in front of you. Sometimes you have to take a shot and you could be a yard inside the two-point arc, but you have to play as you see it.

"You're not going to step back a yard and then take a shot standing. It's obviously harder to take on a shot standing than when you're moving on to it.

"There obviously is a huge reward for getting them. You could see in some of the games, there's no lead big enough now.

"If you get two or three two pointers, it's a big chunk of scores that you can get in a short period of time. If you get two or three in a row, it's a huge momentum swing.

"Definitely it could come down to it (on Sunday). I think it's definitely something worth going after."

Frayne admits it's been a great year for Meath so far. He said that while losing the Leinster final was tough to take, the players reacted positivly and have been eager to put in a strong finish to the year.

"It's been a great year. We had some massive wins. At the same time we lost the Leinster final as well which was a big one," he recalled.

"You're judged off silverware so we were disappointed with that, but we've definitely come on a long way this year so hopefully it keeps going.

"He (Robbie Brennan) just said, 'You can only be really disappointed if you don't believe that you'll be back here again'.

"There's confidence in the group that, please God, we will be back there again. So it was kind of just, 'look, we've made serious progress so far, there's no point throwing it away really'.

"Robbie brings a lot of energy. He fills lads with confidence. He's been great so far. He makes you feel 10 foot tall when you're playing.

"If you're not pulling your weight at the same time, he'll tell you. He's to the point as well, but he's been great, everyone gets on really well with him.

"He's definitely brought a new, fresh approach and fresh ideas."

After losing his previous two games that he played in Croke Park against Dublin in 2024 and to Louth in this year's Leinster final, Frayne is hoping Sunday will be third time lucky.