MEATH… 0-10
ARMAGH… 2-16
Armagh – for a place yours truly has only been on four separate occasions during the four and a bit decades rolling around this world – causes a serious emotional tumult. From the time of my first excursion up the reunite with the Blair family in Crossmaglen whom we’d met in Lourdes when I was only four. The whirring, shuddering noise of the RUC helicopter landing on the on the real Theatre Of Dreams.
A bunch of kids, some not much older than myself, doing nothing more than kicking a ball around. Under the watchful eye of an ever vigilant group of parents. Until the robust gougers in uniform decamp from their aerial monstrosity and herded the unfortunate locals into housing estates like cattle that were after breaking into the neighbour’s garden and eating the eating their turnips.
All bar the blonde haired kid. Again, not much older than myself. He didn’t seem to have anybody with him. And yet, the orangutan in the uniform of the occupying forces bellowed questions at him the kid could hardly have been old enough to understand. With the loudness and ferocity of a combine revving up for action.
It’s a memory which has stayed with me for all the years which have followed. Last Saturday night, it all came flooding back as raw and painful as the pressure sore which refuses to cease using my left foot as its residence. Even though I’d been up in the Orchard County on two other occasions since and nothing had triggered it. Until then.
I reckon, in fact, it’s a certainty that it was what were allegedly speed ramps but in fact resembled – to a much greater degree – craters left behind from a darker time in our history – in the carpark of St Patrick’s Academy, adjacent to the ground.
***
Now, at this juncture, I must compliment, in the strongest possible terms, the Armagh GAA community for their magnificent disabled viewing facilities and the numerous patient, attentive, understanding Stewards they had on duty in that part of the ground.
But between them all they made it an occasion and another venue to put Croke Park to shame. If only that could be said for the school. Because, apart from the cavernous ‘speed ramps’, the complete dearth of light made matters unnecessarily more awkward.
***
Mind you, the entirety of the Meath travelling party probably would’ve taken any additional illumination going after being put through a chastening evening by Kieran McGeeney’s team in their splendidly appointed home.
It had all started so differently for the visitors. Cian McBride grasping the throw in and setting Colm O’Rourke’s charges straight into the attack as Trim’s Aaron Lynch clipped over a fine point.
Meath were the better team at that stage, as Mat Costello (free), Eoghan Frayne and McBride (Mark) also prompted white flags. With five minutes to go to the short whistle, the sides were deadlocked 0-05 apiece.
At that level of football though, five minutes can be an eternity. Now, there’s hardly a good time to concede a goal, but there could scarcely be a worse time to concede two of the damn things than either side of the midway point. Which is exactly the fate Meath were dealt here and in all honesty that extinguished whatever modicum of a contest there was about the affair.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that the only reason the orange and white were upsides their guests was because Conor Turbit converted a succession of frees that were so softly awarded it was like distributing stuffed bunnies at the end of an Easter egg hunt.
Of course, the point could or maybe should be made that the official in question shoulldn’t even have been in charge of the fixture with his own county in the same division, but that’s neither here nor there.
***
People often marvel and how I manage to pull morsels of positivity out of what to most would be the most glum of situations. But even this writer left the Orchard with a sour taste in the mouth on Saturday night last.
They say it’s the hope that kills, and it’s an easy theory to subscribe to. Only weeks ago, the thought process was that league was to be Meath’s championship this year and that we could and should be pushing for promotion. Whereas now we find ourselves looking over our shoulders and staring down the gun barrell of a relegation battle yet again.
Right, so avoiding the latter outcome is still within our own hands. Especially with three of their remaining matches at home. Yet you can be guaranteed all in the Meath camp are smarting after the last couple of weeks.
However, personally speaking, to fulfil the need to harvest even miniscule grains of positivity humanely possible, inclination would be to highlight the efforts of Sean Brennan, Adam O’Neill, Mick Murphy and McBride.
SCORERS – E. Frayne (0-4), M. Costello (0-2), C. McBride, A. Lynch, J. O’Connor and D. Moriarity (0-1 each).
MEATH – S. Brennan; D. Keogan, A. O’Neill, M. Murphy; M. Flood, D. Campion, S. Coffey; R. Jones, J. Flynn; D. McGowan, E. Frayne, C. McBride; A. Lynch, M. Costello, J. O’Connor.
SUBS – S. Walsh for Lynch, C. Hickey for Flynn, R. Kinsella for McGowan, A. McDonnell for Flood, D. Moriarity for McBride.
Referee – Brendan Cawley (Kildare)
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