Rafferty admits Meath defeat to Westmeath was 'heartbreaking'

By John Harrington

Four days on from Meath’s defeat to Westmeath in the Leinster SFC quarter-final and the pain of the loss is still etched deeply on the face of Royal County defender Sean Rafferty.

They were on a mission this year to win the provincial championship, so to fall at the first hurdle was hard to take.

You ask Rafferty how he and his team-mates have felt since the game, and he doesn’t even attempt to sugar-coat it.

“Ah, look, the dressing room was heartbreaking,” said Rafferty at the launch of the 2026 Leinster GAA Beko Club Champion competition. “Not a word said. Few tears here and there. Bus journey probably the same back. Very disappointing, hard to take still, a few days later. Every time you think about it, it's a heartbreak.

“But, look, that's sport and we have to move on and there's an All-Ireland series coming now, so our focus will shift to that and we can let ourselves feel down for a while but not forever and we have to take our learnings and take our beating.

“We were beat on the day by a team that was better us on the day, so, look, you just have to accept that, that's sport, that's the way it goes sometimes, but the only thing you can do now is look back, take the learnings and move forward to the All-Ireland series now with a bit of positivity and know that it hasn't changed who we are as a team. We can still hit a very high level.

“We didn't on Sunday, but it's still in us, it's still there, so I suppose you're chasing getting back to that level again.”

What disappointed Rafferty most about the defeat was that his team didn’t match Westmeath’s hunger on the day, something he regards as just not good enough.

“Look, initially coming away from the game, the feeling is that they probably wanted it a bit more on the day than we did and that's a tough thing to accept because there's no reason behind that,” he said.

“It's not a tactical thing or anything like that, it's a team thing. You're looking and going, why weren't we up for it? Not that we weren't up for it, but not at the level that they brought. It probably took us a while to get to that level in the game and by the time we got to it, maybe it was a small bit too late for us when we started that bit of a comeback.

“For the first 20 minutes, it's probably an even enough game, it's point for point, it's whatever, and then the first goal kind of happens and things change and they maybe celebrate a few turnovers they got on us and the ones we get on them we kind of just accept and we don't really show that same celebration and passion that they had.

“Look, that's okay too, but ultimately it probably cost us that they just got a bit more energy from their turnovers and a bit of energy from holding us out and maybe a bit more energy from the goals. Goals win games and they finished with four of them.

“They probably just had a bit more energy on the day and that's hard to accept because it's something you should always bring to a game. We'll know going forward now if we want to win any game we're going to have to be at 100% intensity and energy.

“We probably got to it most of the time in the league and that probably got us promoted to Division 1, but we didn't get there Sunday and if we want to become an elite team at that top level, chasing Leinsters in the future and chasing the latter end of All-Irelands, we have to be able to get to that elite level all the time.”

On a personal level it was a tough day at the office for 2025 All-Star, Rafferty, who had the unenviable task of trying to man-mark Westmeath’s star forward Luke Loughlin who finished the game with six points to his name.

“I've said this before, all the forwards at this level are brilliant,” says Rafferty. “There's a reason they're starting for their counties and he's probably up there with the best of them.

“He can shoot off both feet, he's strong, and most of all he probably backs himself in every situation. He's not afraid to get on that ball with three lads in front of him. If he misses a shot, he's not afraid to take the exact shot again.

“On the day he probably got the better of me and that's all credit to him. From a personal point of view it's disappointing.

“You're not going to win your battle every day, but letting him kick six points is not something I want to be doing. All credit to him, he's a brilliant footballer and he'd probably start for any county in the country so I can't beat myself up too much, but you're coming away a bit disappointed that maybe I wasn't a bit more tight on him I suppose.”

If there’s a doubt about this Meath team it’s that they attack much better as a team than they defend as one.

You can’t afford to concede four goals like they did against Westmeath, and Rafferty admits the concession of soft goals is something that consistently comes back to haunt them.

“The goals are definitely hard to accept because I think very rarely in this game is a goal maybe a bit of individual brilliance,” he says.

“You always feel like you could have done something, I could have made that run, I could have stepped off this lad, we could have got to that middle channel a bit quicker to close it up.

“We lost to Louth last year, conceded three. Lost to Donegal last year, conceded three. Lost to Westmeath at the weekend, conceded four. You're asking a lot if you're conceding that many goals.

“So, yeah, look, goals are very hard to accept. You're going to concede scores, but what scores are we able to limit them to? Is it an under-pressure one-pointer? If they're going to kick a two is it an under-pressure two? Are we giving them a free shot?

“When they're breaching your defence to score on a goal, I find that very hard to accept. You're not going to win games conceding a good few goals but that is something we can absolutely work on and fix. We know we're capable of doing it.”

Meath won’t be in action again until the weekend of May 23/24 or May 30/31 when they play either a provincial champion or runner-up in Round of the All-Ireland Qualifiers.

It’ll be a tough game, but Rafferty believes they’re capable of getting their season back on track regardless of the opposition.

“Look, that's the position you put yourself in but it's not like we don't back ourselves any time,” he says.

“We do our study on teams. We did our study on Westmeath, just like any other team, and we feel like if we bring the level we're capable of getting to, we can be tough for any team.

“We have that little period now where we can go away as a team and work on the things we felt that let us down and maybe get that consistency a bit higher, maybe in our standard in training, maybe in a few training games, things like that, and get that consistency back up.

"Then you'll get your draw and see who you play, and you can kind of lock in and focus then and make sure that we bring the level we want to bring to that first round of the All-Ireland Series this year.”