It certainly wasn’t a season of Meathiocrity

ALL-IRELAND SFC SEMI-FINAL It was one hell of a ride for the Meath fans

We made songs, we wrote poems, we painted our villages and towns green and gold, we gave messiah titles to the likes of Sean Rafferty, Jordan Morris and Mathew Costello. What did that make Robbie Brennan? God, I suppose. Did we get a bit carried away? Maybe, but, no regrets, that was one hell of a journey, writes Tom Gannon.

Cast your mind back to half-time in the Leinster SFC quarter-final fixture against Offaly. Meath were 10 points down and the feeling of 'here we go again' amongst the crowd in Pairc Tailteann was palpable. Another season of 'Meathiocrity' seemed unavoidable.

However, something happened at half-time that day. Something clicked because a sublime performance from Mathew Costello who finished with nine points and the introduction of James Conlon, who hit 1-2, inspired Meath to stage a remarkable comeback. Of course, at that stage, we could have never predicted that wins over Dublin, Kerry, Cork and Galway would all form part of what has been an incredible season for the Royals.

As a life-long Meath supporter, who is old enough to have been alive for the glory days of '96 and '99 but not old enough to remember them, the whole summer, but especially the last two weeks, have been just incredible. The result, the performance, everything about Sunday's semi-final loss to Donegal was of course, heartbreaking. However, to be heartbroken, you have to fall in love and the summer romance we all had with the Royals tops any cringy early 2000s rom-com on the market.

As a reporter, you tend to arrive at Croke Park for the big days, quite early. It is quite something to witness the seats start to rapidly fill up as the atmosphere builds and builds until eventually the Artane band start to march and you can't even hear yourself think.

There is no point in sugarcoating it, the game was a tough watch. Optimism remained somewhat high for a while but the injury to Bryan Menton and the remainder of the first-half was a real 'oh we are in big trouble here' period.

The second-half, of course, was a tough 35 minutes. Jim McGuinness's side turned over and punished Meath time and time again. After the glorious season that the Royals had given us, there was no sense of hurt or anger amongst the Meath fans. Just a feeling of helplessness. A feeling that nothing was going right for us and there was nothing the players on the field could do about it.

It will of course hurt our superstars in green and gold for a while. The team was far below the level that they had shown previously and they will be disappointed to have not really even competed with Donegal.

However, isn't it great to feel something? We have had so many years of predictable below-par performances. We had glimmers of hope here and there but nothing of any real substance, until 2025. Until Robbie Brennan took over the helm and turned Meath football inside out.

So where do the Royals go from there? What lessons have we learned? When answering a question from Colm Keyes about the changes in the game since his first tenure in charge of Donegal, Jim McGuinness spoke about the incredible shift within the GAA in commitment, work ethic and physical attributes in the last year alone.

"The game has increased by about 80% to 100% on last year alone in terms of the physical attributes that are required. They're doing more distance in games, but their explosive distances have almost doubled. It is a different game now, and it's a different era as well," said McGuinness.

"You can see from the numbers the whole way around the country, there are a lot of serious injuries out there at the moment. Players are so explosive, and strong, and powerful, they're putting so much torque through their body, that if you put them into a state of fatigue, on a consistent basis, something has to give.

"The strength and the power is there, but the fatigue is also there. We've done a good job of managing that. We haven't gone over the top on our training and we've kept the lads in a good place and fresh."

Without realising it, Jim McGuinness made a very poignant point about an issue that has hampered Meath this year. Just think of the number of injuries that the Royals have suffered. Jack Flynn, Jack Kinlough, James Conlon and Ronan Jones all suffered season-ending blows. Mathew Costello and Jordan Morris were out for good chunks of the campaigns. It is actually quite extraordinary and a credit to the fighting spirit of the Royals that they managed to get this far despite all those massive blows.

You cannot fault Meath for their work ethic, their commitment or the pure resolve that they have shown this year, but maybe one lesson learned from this incredible journey is that they need to manage and mitigate the factors that cause players to have spells on the sidelines with injuries - easier said than done of course.

That being said, it makes for a very optimistic future. At full strength, there is no ceiling for this Meath side and the fans can really look forward to what is to come in the coming years. For now, though, all that is left to be said is, thank you Robbie Brennan and the Meath lads for an absolutely incredible journey in 2025.