Shaun Leonard of Meath celebrates after the Electric Ireland GAA Football All-Ireland Minor Championship Final match between Meath and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin.
By Paul Keane
Meath manager Cathal O Bric said he had total faith in gamebreaker Shaun Leonard who kicked a cracking point in the fifth minute of stoppage time to secure the Electric Ireland All-Ireland minor title for his county.
A tense underage decider that swung this way and that, and which was level on eight occasions, was ultimately decided by a well taken 65th minute score from Leonard.
The move began with a fine fetch by Christian Finlay from a Meath kick-out and developed up through the pitch with Conor Ennis powering forward from defence, allowing Leonard to eventually seize possession on the right.
O Bric said that despite the St Colmcilles teenager kicking an earlier wide from a similar position, and Meath going nearly 20 minutes in total without a score, he had full faith in Leonard to seize the moment.
"He scored two points against Sligo last weekend in Cavan and won Man of the Match," said O Bric. "He's the kind of guy you'd trust. I know he'd put one wide from that position earlier in the half with the outside of his right.
"This time he had gotten himself a little closer to goal, about 25 metres out and yeah, you'd always back him with that. He has the confidence in himself and we'd have the confidence in him that when he'd get himself into that position, he'd be able to finish off the chance."
Meath manager Cathal Ó Bric and Seán O'Hare after the Electric Ireland GAA Football All-Ireland Minor Championship Final match between Meath and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin.
O Bric revealed that Meath's game plan was to put Tyrone under pressure and see how they responded.
Prior to the final, Tyrone had won their four championship games by 16, 30, seven and 14-point margins.
"The game plan really was to try to put Tyrone in an uncomfortable position," said O Bric. "They had won all their games by a fair distance and they had won from the front the whole time.
"Our game plan was that at the first-quarter, half-time and at the second-quarter, that they'd be behind and we managed that pretty much, which put them under pressure and then coming into the final quarter I suppose they had a few chances there to narrow the gap and a lot of them went wide.
"They hadn't been in that situation before, they were chasing the game and because of that I think maybe lads who'd normally be comfortable slipping the ball over the bar, it just didn't work out that way for them."
At the final whistle, O Bric said it was simply 'relief' that Meath had survived the epic and claimed the county's first minor title in nearly 30 years.
But it was sheer disappointment for Tyrone who rued the 14 wides they kicked and, in particular, their late misses.
"It's not frustration, it's just tough because you know how hard these lads have worked," said Tyrone manager Gerard Donnelly. "In Garvaghy at training, they're nailing those scores. That's probably what pressure does. Some of them were the wrong options but some of them the shots were on and nine times out of 10 they'd score them. The execution just wasn't there."
