Ruairi Kinsella delighted to prove Meath's doubters wrong

By Paul Keane

Ruairi Kinsella had a fair idea of what most people expected when Meath's six-point lead suddenly turned into a three-point deficit at Croke Park.

That was midway through the second-half of their All-Ireland quarter-final tie and all the indicators were that a Galway side packed with stellar talent, and simmering for 55 minutes or so, was finally coming to the boil.

"I'd say 90 percent of the country wrote us off, there and then," said Meath centre-forward Kinsella.

They'd have been wrong if they did, of course, because Meath had saved a strong kick for the last lap of their rollercoaster encounter.

And no sooner had they fallen in Galway's slipstream than they were out of it again, outscoring the four-in-a-row Connacht champions by 1-4 to 0-3 down the stretch to win by the slimmest margin.

"It shows the character in the team, the belief we have, how hard we've worked all year," continued Kinsella who has started every game for Meath in this year's eight-game Championship odyssey. "We just stayed calm, looked after the ball, and we went again. It was next ball, next ball, next ball."

It helps to have talents like Jordan Morris in attack. The Kingscourt man missed the majority of the Leinster championship with a serious knee injury that at one stage appeared as if it would rule him out for the season. He's back up to full speed now and tortured the Galway defence with his constant running and scoring threat, registering 1-6 in all.

"I keep saying to people, there's a touch of genius about Jordan," said Meath manager Robbie Brennan. "I've referenced before the likes of Shane Walsh for Galway, who was out there playing, and maybe Paul Mannion too having worked with these guys.

"But Jordan is absolutely in that category. He is impossible to mark at times, literally impossible to mark. At other times he might have a turnover and lose the ball but they're what we call creative turnovers. You're allowed to have them when you're that type of player."

Kinsella recalled speaking with Morris in the dressing-room at half-time.

"We were saying, 'Keep on trying for it, keep on trying it' because we knew what he has, that ability, and we knew it would come good for him eventually," said Kinsella. "And he showed it in the second-half there. He's just unreal. He can't be stopped when he's in form like that."

Few gave Meath a chance of pulling off a famous win beforehand and Brennan had his tongue in his cheek when he said he hoped they continue to get 'lucky'.

"I think the Leinster final probably stood to us," said Brennan, referencing their provincial final defeat to Louth. "We said in the dressing-room afterwards that we'd be back here this year, in Croke Park. No matter what we had to do, we'd get back here. And we knew when we were back that this was our opportunity.

"We're probably lucky. Is that what everyone says? We keep getting lucky? We were lucky against Dublin. We were lucky against Kerry. And I guess we were lucky again today. So we'll see who we get in the semi now. And we'll have to be lucky again, I suppose."

The subsequent draw for the July 12/13 semi-finals paired Meath off with Donegal.

"If anyone has holidays booked for that weekend, please God just change them and we'll see you again in a couple of weeks," smiled Brennan.

The defeat brought an end to Padraic Joyce's sixth season as Galway manager. Asked about his future, Joyce kicked to touch.

"We've just gone out of the Championship so I'm not going to make any rash decisions," he said.

"We'll sit and chat with the county board. There's a lot of lads in there with decisions to make about next year as well, as we have as management, so we will do that in due course."

The 2022 and 2024 All-Ireland final manager said Meath deserved the win overall.

"They won the breaking ball battle all day out in the middle of the pitch," said Joyce of Meath. "They were very sharp inside as well. We didn't really get enough to put them away. They hung in the game very well and congratulations to them. We just didn't really finish the game out, very disappointing from our side, no doubt about it. But the lads will regroup and go again."