MEATH… 2-17
GALWAY… 2-16
Inches. How often have you heard it quoted, here and in other places? Al Paccino’s Inches speech from Any Given Sunday. Well, lads and lassies, it’s about to get another run out.
Before getting into the nuts and bolts of that though, it is surely a gross indictment of those behind the Tier II All Ireland Minor Football Championship – Paul McGirr Cup – that the first this writer knew about the fixture was purely by chance seeing the team sheets splash up on some of the Meath GAA social media outlets less than two hours before throw in.
By that stage, having attended a photo shoot on Friday morning, gone to Dunshaughlin on farming business (which also incorporated lunch) and already done an airport run, Croke Park and a medical appointment all since last Sunday, I wasn’t about to ask my significant other to get behind the wheel again.
That’s ok though. As much as I like to push boundaries and limits in order to get as much out of life as humanely possible, there are times the cloth most be cut according to measure.
However, it’s because of that very fact greatest upset festers tonight. Firstly because if knowledge of the match was a little more widespread, schedules could have been jigged around to make a trip to Pairc Tailteann possible.
Even besides that, though, more disappointing still was the fact that, between TG4, GAA+, Clubber TV or even the Co Committee website – which advertises a streaming theron – none of them could have planted a camera on a tripod somewhere and someone with a mic beside it.
However, maybe it’s the sentimentalist in me, but, the worst part of it all is that it amounts to a flagrant insult to the memory Paul McGirr – who tragically lost his life on the field of play whilst lining out for Tyrone in the Ulster MFC of 1997 – and a diminishment of the trophy named in his honour.
Any All Ireland – whether its GAA, Scratch Cup golf or Road Boles (Boccia for us disabled throwers) is hard won and eternally cherished by those who grasp them. I am of an age that I can recall Meath teams losing at least two All Ireland MHC B Finals before winning one.
And the emotions at contrasting ends of the scale were the same as if it were Sam or Liam they were competing for. So whatever about those who should know better, the one cohort you could be bloody sure it meant something to were the 40-ish players and their mentors on both sides.
***
In the Meath lads’ case, it was very clear very quickly that they felt they had unfinished business to attend to after a desperately unlucky Leinster campaign. A chip on the shoulder is never any harm either. They were well entitled to it too, having been rode out of a perfectly good goal against Kildare and a hideous free being given against Nathan Reilly which ultimately led to their undoing against Offaly.
Going by the analysis of my colleague Fergal Lynch, very quickly it was obvious our lads had their dander up. Despite a fine score from Meath’s Cillian Murphy, the Connacht side carved out a narrow lead for themselves before the aforementioned St Colmcille’s lad tested whether the west really was awake, cracking a goal to the maroon and white net.
Dunsany’s Stephen Cahill and Barry Keating of Galway then traded scores before Meath regained a modicum of control as firstly Tadhg Foley and midfielder Sean Smyth combined to crash home a second goal for the locals as they opened a chasm of 2-05 to 0-06 at that stage.
But then the ferris wheel spun again and those with the ship on their chest ascended back to parity via two two-pointers from Keating before Cahill and Oisin O’Neachtain traded scores to ensure deadlock as the sides went for deserved and required refuel, 2-06 to 0-12.
The frantic, seasaw nature of events continued from the off in Act II as the sides swapped scores – Will Byrne for Meath – before Charlie Gallagher made his first telling intervention when driving over a two pointer to put Joe Cowley’s charges back in front.
It was short lived though, as a Ryan Connolly goal tipped the scales the other way but again Meath were unwavered as Adam McEvoy and Smyth again tied up matters again, 2-11 to 1-14.
However, then Joey Cullinane goaled for Galway before points from Ciaran O’Toole left the green and gold looking like a comeback of Kevin Foley or Jody Devine proportions wouldn’t be enough to wriggle their backsides from the bacon slicer.
Until those Inches showed up. In the guise of the inches width of the crossbar which Jeaic O’Cuileann crashed a shot off Charlie Finnegan’s crossbar which would’ve buried Meath’s ambitions for another year.
Instead though, it was the 6ft 6in of young big Gally who pulled another long range missile from his repertoire before repeating the trick about 90 seconds later from even further out the field to dramatically get the locals back on level terms.
Extra time? Hold that thought. Some of those pesky inches knocked on the door again. The industrious Will Byrne, so often the conveyor belt from where good things come, found himself straight through on goal but, blinded by the headlights – or possibly the evening sun – went for the inches below the crossbar rather than over but was foiled.
Immense credit to the Simonstown Gaels youngster, undeterred, he instigated the rescue mission which culminated in the outstanding Smyth having another go at beginning the redevelopment of the old ground as the score which completed one of the great Meath comebacks promulgated a roar that nearly lifted the roof off the stand!
SCORERS – C. Gallagher (0-7, 3x2PT), S. Smyth (1-3), C. Murphy (1-1), W. Byrne and S. Cahill (0-2 each), S. Delaney and A. McEvoy (0-1 each).
MEATH – C. Finnegan; C. Sheridan, C. O’Sullivan, G. Callaghan; T. Foley, E. McBrearty, N. Lawless; D. Byrne, S. Smyth; W. Byrne, C. Murphy, S. Delaney; A, McEvoy, C. Gallagher, S. Cahill.
SUBS – M. Condon for Foley, J. O’Rourke for McEvoy, C. O’Connor for Sheridan, R. Johnson for Delaney, B. Gaffney for D. Byrne.
Referee – Maggie Farrelly (Cavan)
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