Brennan remains upbeat despite bitter disappointment

Hard work starts now ahead of massive test in three weeks

For only the second time in his so far brief tenure, and for thefirst time in championship football, Meath manager Robbie Brennan suffered a second successive defeat as the Royals surrendered an eight-point loss to Cork in their All-Ireland SFC round one clash in Pairc Ui Rinn on Saturday.

The mood around the Meath dressing room around 7pm on Saturday evening was sombre to say the least. Having been mauled in an 11 mminute spell that saw them go from being eight points up to three down in almost the blink of an eye Brennan's side were shellshocked.

Even the dismissal of Colm O'Callaghan for a harsh red card in the 55th minutes couldn't spark Meath into any sort of life. The red card did put a halt to Cork's momentum, but thety still managed to outscore Meath for the remainder of the contest by 0-5 to 0-4 despite having a man sent-off.

Cork beat Meath 0-19 to 0-8 in the second-half as the Royals fell asunder and lost cohesion, structure, confidence and the ability to wrestle back control that they had seized in a stunning opening half display that saw them claim a 1-16 to 0-11 interval lead.

That outstanding opening half, and in particular the 13 minute period that saw Meath go from 0-7 to 0-9 down into a 1-16 to 0-10 lead, formed the foundation for Brennan's positivity following the loss.

Sure, he was disappointed with the outcome, but according to the Meath manager nothing really changes. He, his management and the players will get back to work this week and prepare for the next round in just under three weeks times just as they would have down had they won in the Rebel heartland, only now Meath are preparing for a battle in last chance saloon.

There are no more chances for Meath in this year's championship. They will face one of the other losers from round one and with a potential clash with a team like Kerry or Roscommon on the cards, there will be a few nervous days ahead.

So after enduring two successive defeats in the champiobnship for the first time, was this Brennan's toughest day as Meath boss.

"Possibly but, that game on its own, I wouldn't feel so. Maybe because it's tied in with the Leinster Championship game it's tough to take," remarked the Meath manager.

"Obviously, Westmeath went on to win the Leinster Championship, so you're beaten by the champions. It shouldn't be as bad as maybe everybody was trying to make it out to be, but that's sport.

"That was two Div 1 teams going out of there today, and there are fine, fine margins in these type of things.

"We've been on the other side of those results, and we've all been patting each other on the back. So while I'm disappointed we didn't win, I'm still incredibly proud of the players, and we'll be back again in three weeks.

"The result is ultimately disappointing because obviously we came down here for the result. I thought the performance was decent in a lot of spells and possibly maybe could have got something out of the game.

"It was certainly different from the Leinster championship game that we played in relation to a lot of areas that we looked at. So a lot of positives for us, obviously apart from the result."

There is a fear that confidence could be damaged after successive losses to Westmeath and Cork, but the last time Meath lost two games in a row under Brennan (against monaghan and Louth in the league last year), they bounced back inpressively to enjoy a great 2025 so Brennan doesn't believe he will have much difficulty lifting the spirits again in the coming weeks, although having to wait another three weeks for a game is far from ideal.

"The first one (the loss to Westmeath) was definitely crushing. That today (the loss to Cork), not so much because nothing changes.

"We have a game in three weeks time. We don't know where we're going. Whoever we get is going to be an incredibly difficult team to play against. So it doesn't really change. We don't have time to be sorry.

"We probably did a little bit after Westmeath, but we don't after this one. There's nothing dramatically different for us. We've got to be ready in three weeks time.

"The players will be disappointed, don't get me wrong. There's some serious disappointed bodies in the dressing room, but I thought our performance possibly deserved something out of it and we'll definitely be taking the positives and getting ready for three weeks.

"There'll be no time off. We don't have time to take time off. We have to keep at it. Keep the foot down.

"It's not great (just two games in eight weeks). Obviously everybody loves that rhythm of a game every two weeks. I can understand possibly why they need to have a three week gap to the next game.

"The five-week break after we lost to Westmeath went by in the blink of an eye. If you break it down into a number of sessions, it's very few and things you need to work on. So we'll be maxing every minute we have over the three weeks."

Reflecting on the game itself there was plenty for Brennan to ponder.

He was pleased with the opening half, but felt his side's lead could have been greater given the stiffness of the breeze.

In the second-half he was left to lament a failure to take advantage of numerical supremacy and also the struggles his side endured around kickout time.

"It was such a tricky wind to really put a number on. It kept changing and even when Frayner (Eoghan Frayne) was going for the toss, we weren't sure which way to go with it.

"The goal chance at the end (Sean Coffey's opoportunity) would have been another little cushion for us, but having said all of that, Cork were able to get their momentum as they're entitled to do and they made good use of it, with the likes of Sherlock.

"A lot of that credit for why we couldn't get out hands on the ball has to go to Cork on kick-outs and sometimes some of our decision-making in trying to get on the ball didn't help.

"Cork are entitled to go after it and get the ball too, so you have to compete for that. We've had spots of that ourselves where you get the momentum swinging and it's hard to stop us as well and I say credit to Cork to be able to do that today.

"We do work on different scenarios in training, whether you're up or behind or there's a wind or there's not a wind, depending on what you're chasing, so it's not like we don't look at it (when Cork went down to 14 men).

"Again, I'd have to give Cork big credit. Their movement off the kick-outs was brilliant, they were able to find those little spots. It's something for us to look at, they got some short kick-outs away, which is really disappointing when you're up a man.

"That's the one thing we should be able to stop. Towards the end, we ended up going man-on-man and trying to free up our plus one. Their movement was good to be able to get it away. So again, I give them massive credit and not necessarily a negative on our lads.

“We'd be disappointed that we weren't on our kick-out, especially against 14 men. On their kickouts, it's obviously easier to set up. We certainly would be disappointed when you're raffling kick-outs when you're up a man.

"The last time it happened in the league they dropped off us fully and just gave us a kick-out. They didn't do that today, so it meant we had to look at a couple of different options. Overall I'm still extremely proud of the lads and the work they put in.

"Possibly it did get a little bit frantic (late on when Meath were chasing the game), maybe 10 minutes into the second-half, it looked like we were rushing a little bit.

"Game management is something we're always looking at. We've referenced that from day one. It's something you have to continue improving because it's moments like that when you need to be good at it.

"I counter that by saying there's been loads of games where we've come out on the right side of that because our game management has been good and we've won down the stretch. So we won't throw the baby out with the bathwater fully on that either."