At the time my brother began working for a local farmer – either before I was born or very shortly thereafter – when it came to ploughing, the process was slow, arduous and highly labour intensive. With fields having to be marked out, just as you would in your vegetable garden at home.
This, essentially, meant having a ‘line’ – in other words a rope – straight from one end of a field to the other. There would be one of these lines at either end of a field, with the ideal scenario being that there would be a tractor and plough at either end of the field with the idea being that the two tractor-plough combinations would meet in the middle and thus the field would be finished.
The advent of the reversible plough made things far faster and more efficient because – as the name suggests – at the of a given furrow, the plough is flipped over, enabling the operator to keep going up and down the field rather than from one hedge to the other and meeting in the middle.
Why in the name of God is that on the sports pages, I hear you pondering. Well ponder no more. Just like the modern plough, fixtures in the Allianz National Leagues also appear to be reversible. Allow me to explain. Essentially, it translates as, if a team has four matches at home and three away this season, the opposite will be the case in twelve months time.
To that end, the Meath senior footballers have the rough end of the stick in the forthcoming spring, with trips to Cork, Down, Westmeath and Louth (which actually means Inniskeen, Co Monaghan) ahead of them. That, in turn, makes victory in the three home fixtures – against Cavan, Roscommon and Monaghan – absolutely non negotiable.
You have to have your plough shined up to produce your best furrow. Or put another way, you have to have the groundwork done – translation – your three home games won, to have a shot at mere survival in Div. 2, never mind any higher aspirations.
The evaluation for each team in the division will be different. As in, what will constitute success for each. For example, the Cork, Cavan, Roscommon and Louth managers are in position a while and will presumably all have promotion to the top table as their primary objective.
Obviously, notionally at least, Robbie, his fellow mentors and players will have similar aims, but, like Dermot McCabe with Westmeath and Gabriel Bannigan in Monaghan, staying in situ in starting point A.
As far as can be recalled, Cork, Down, Louth and Monaghan – including the late Brendan Og Duffy – have had successful U-20 teams in recent seasons and will therefore be buoyed by infusion of young talent from those teams.
Then again, the same can firmly be affixed to the Meath camp on foot of 2024’s Leinster U-20 FC success, so they are entitled to have quiet confidence in their own prospects.
On the hurling side, those who are now Johnny Greville’s charges have three home games – against Donegal, Kildare and Down. While they will travel to Tyrone, Derry and Kerry.
The Royal stickmen will be keen to atone for a campaign which, with the greatest of due respect to all concerned, petered out after showing potential at times.
Now, it has to be said that several of the Div. 2 amalgam, Kerry and Kildare and Down in particular, have caused Royal County hurling teams no end of problems over the years.
That said, like the senior footballers, our hurlers are entitled to look forward with optimism regarding their prospects. On foot of, for example, those who were part of the county panel which won the Peadar O’Liathann Cup a couple of years back. At least some of whom are bound to be in line for a call up to the senior panel, if some of them are not there already.
Of course, at this time in the calendar, before the new year and new season have even begun, all possibilities are open to all comers. Hope springs eternal.
This corner has absolutely no problem admitting that Christmas is far from my favourite time of year – horse racing aside – and, in years past, the looming of the O’Byrne/McGrath/McKenna Cup and FBD Connacht League competitions was always the target one needed to aim at in order to keep running battles with mental health matters manageable.
Of course, now, due to the kow-towing by the movers and shakers in the GAA to the agitating GPA, the pre-season competitions have been culled – or ‘suspended’ as the official line is. So negotiating the gap between when you are reading this and Meath’s inter county season throwing in at Pairc Ui Chaoimh will be a case of breaking new ground.
In a development that will shock absolutely nobody, the abundance of horse racing available for perusal will be a central tenet thereof. Other than that, you can be sure something will hit the Bulls Eye!
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