At the outset, let me be very clear here – when you only win one game out of three, two of which were against teams who failed to rise a gallop last season, you can really blame nobody but yourself.
When you have parity at worst going down the stretch in the two defeats and morph into headless chickens with the winning post in sight, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.
When, like Private Pike, you go for the “Stupid Boy” playbook as troops try to avoid active service rather than taking the “Don’t Panic” approach and putting bodies on the line for the greater good, the cause of, and solution to, all of your perceived problems are probably staring back at you in the mirror.
That said, in the interest of fairness, it should be stated that there were mitigating factors at play throughout the season too. Not many, but a few. Not least being short as many as four county players for the majority, if not the entirity of the season would seriously impinge any club side.
For example, take Conor Gray, Charlie O’Connor, Conor Duke, Ruairi Kinsella and/or Mat Costello out of the Dunshaughlin platoon and do they win the Keegan Cup last autumn? I very much doubt it.
However, three and a half decades of being on the sporting circuit has informed this writer time and again that a large part of what makes successful entities as such is knowing how to win. That and wanting to.
A prime example during the emotional rollercoaster which was the last round of the group stages of the Meath SFC. Meath Hill must be damn near the smallest club in the county, but, when I say they are unique it is not over egging the pudding. Anybody who has ever came across or observed them will vouch as such.
Look no further than Navan O’Mahonys. The most storied and successful club in the county. The general query when the two shades of blue collided in the IFC Final was how much would O’Mahony’s win by. They didn’t. Part one of the fairytale was Shane McCoy’s side storming to their place at the top table of Meath football. Part two being Dunsany’s annexation of the county JFC after eight final defeats.
Now, for both clubs, undoubtedly, objective A for the campaign would’ve been to maintain their status at their new level. Which, as far as I’m aware, they have. But both are, in my view, capable of more.
In Dunsany’s case, Eoin Harkin has already made a deserved and impactful return to the county colours while Harry and Stephen Cahill, who have already made significant contributions to Meath underage teams, won’t be long about following him.
Now though, we’ve arrived at the point which promulgated production of what you are reading. That in a situation where three teams ended tied on points, score difference is a cruel manner by which to decide a team’s fate. That eight, nine or 10 months work can be flushed down the jax just because they lost a match by more than somebody else is pure lunacy. It’s akin to punishing somebody for getting wet even though they have no waterproof gear.
Now, it needs to be pointed out that it is the view in this seat that the fault here is not with the Meath Co Board. All this new bullsh** can be traced back to the asinine abomination that is the split season.
Why the inherent rush to get things finished? Not all change is good. An association founded in 1884 didn’t start to get things wrong in the last half decade. There was or is no need for the split season.
It was the brainchild of bluffers trying to push their own agenda. I spoke to one former Meath player on Sunday night after all the matches had concluded who pondered “How can it be fair that some teams can be beaten twice and still go through while others with the exact same record are on the shelf until next February”?
It would remind a soul of the immortal line from Animal Farm – “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. I’d put it slightly differently – if that’s the law, sir, then the law’s an ass!
And for what? To bull everything through, like a farmer trying to get the last few bales into the shed before the ar*e falls out of the sky. Would it really hurt to push everything back a week or ten days to facilitate a three way play off?
Of course it wouldn’t. After all, a team wouldn’t be condemned to relegation without first of all having the safety net of a play off as a shot at salvation, so why in the name of the Lord should the same not apply in terms of advancement? By the way, this posturing is not just because Dunboyne lost out. We cut the multiple sticks which beat ourselves.
But it’s absurdly unfair on, for example, Seneschalstown, who only LOST one game yet are eliminated while Dunshaughlin, Summerhill and Donaghmore/Ashbourne all qualify with one win while Meath Hill, Dunboyne, Rathkenny and the aforementioned Yellow Furze outfit did not. Make it make sense. Oh wait, even Hawking couldn’t. Bring back the play offs.
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