By Jamie Ó Tuama

This Saturday, prior to the 2021 All-Ireland Senior Football Final, 1996 All-Ireland winning captain and Meath legend Tommy Dowd will carry the Sam Maguire Cup out on to the plinth as he represents Seán Boylan’s victorious Meath team of 1996. It is certain to stir many fond memories within the Royal County.

Tommy won four All-Stars, all at different positions, and two All-Irelands. He was a key figure for Boylan’s Meath in a career that span over ten years. GAA.ie caught up with Tommy this week for a chat at his home, in the Meath Gaeltacht of Baile Ghib, and we discussed many things from the 1996 All-Ireland battles with Mayo, to the epic four-game thriller with Dublin in 1991, to Seán Boylan, to good memories and, of course, to where he sees Meath’s future following the county's recent underage and ladies’ successes.

In 1996 Meath came from nowhere to capture their first All-Ireland title since 1988. In this questions and answers interview I began by asking Tommy about his recollections of that campaign.

Tommy Dowd: I suppose the main memory was, I think we had 5 or 6 under 21s on the team at the time and really, we weren’t given a chance. Carlow were after having a good league campaign and we played them in the first round of the Leinster Championship and, believe it or not, Carlow were favourites for that game because we had such a young team. We had a couple of elder statesmen such as Colm Coyle and Martin O’Connell who had probably only a year or two left in them at that stage. They were playing football since 1984-1985.

So, you had a half-dozen youngsters who came in I suppose, maybe to get over Carlow. You definitely weren’t going to beat Dublin in the Leinster Championship anyway because you were too young, and they were only gaining experience. I think the greatest memory I would have would be that Boylan had the belief in all those young lads to bring them in and blood them straight away.

I know when I came in first myself, I was there for a good year and a half before I was a regular on the team. So, he brought them straight in, put them straight into the team, a couple of league games and threw them straight into the championship. I think that is the greatest memory of the whole lot, that we done it with such a young group of boys.

JÓT: Dublin won the All-Ireland the previous year and they were probably expected to get another year or two out of that team, after finally getting over the line?

TD: Ye, sure when you win an All-Ireland you are automatically the favourites for it the following year and Dublin were red hot favourites.

We beat Carlow and then I think we beat Wicklow or Offaly after that in another good game and we got to meat Dublin in the Leinster final on a really wet day. It was a very low scoring game. It was ten points to eight. It was a game where every score was absolutely vital because there was nothing in it at the end of the match. Dublin were red hot favourites for that match. It was a great way for us to go into the game.

Everyone loves going into a game when they are underdogs. It was the same I suppose with the Meath ladies last Sunday. Nobody gave them a chance and they ended up just getting out there and putting in a really strong effort and coming out victorious. It was no different when we played Dublin, I think.

JÓT: The final itself went to a replay after a ‘hit and hope’ shot from Colm Coyle caught the Mayo goalkeeper (John Madden) by surprise and bounced luckily over the bar to get Meath a second bite at the cherry. What do you remember most about the two games?

TD: Well, the first game, I think the biggest memory of that is that we didn’t play particularly well at all. With probably ten minutes left Mayo were five or six points up and, normally, when you are that far up you tend to push on and win the game by a few points.

But I suppose Boylan had it instilled in us from a very early age and even in them young lads at that stage a real never die spirit. No matter how much you were going to be behind or whatever the case or the circumstances you kept playing, nearly to when the referee was getting into his car to go home. That is the attitude that he put into all his players down the years as well. No matter how far you are ahead or how far you are behind you just keep playing until the final whistle.

Certainly, I think Mayo let it slip, and maybe on both days. I suppose from a Mayo perspective they would think they let it slip on both days. We were delighted to get a second bite of the cherry when they were so far ahead with ten minutes to go.

Sure, Coyler’s point was kicked from midfield, a real hit and hope shot and we were just lucky that it hopped over the bar and we got a second bite at it again the next day.

JÓT: The replay is remembered by many for the football but also for the bust-up early on. What are your memories of that?

TD: Funny enough even when you look at Reeling In The Years, if they go back to ’96 they show the row. You don’t see the showing off or many clips of the game like they do in other years. Certainly, it will be renowned for what a lot of people call ‘the mill on the hill’ or ‘the mill under the hill’, or whatever.

But look, it was something that never should have happened, and it happens so easily. It just all flared up on the day I suppose. The second day we went out, we weren’t going to be found wanting physically so to speak, like we felt we did the previous day. So, we were really hyped up for that game and everyone got involved.

I was up the far end of the field. I was marking Noel Connelly, the Mayo captain, and it just kept developing and developing and I remember saying to Noel, ‘Jesus, we better go down and try to pull a few of these fellas apart’.

It was still going on when we ran down the field and it was just unlucky with the two lads that got sent off, Colm Coyle and Liam McHale. It could have been anyone. It could have been eight or ten lads that got sent off.

It was an All-Ireland final and I suppose the referee was just going to pick one from either side and I suppose in hindsight the Mayo lads will feel that their best player was sent off. They say our worst play was sent off in Colm Coyle but that is definitely something I would refute.

We knew how valuable Colm Coyle was to the Meath team. He had been playing intercounty football since 1984, so certainly he was a very valuable asset and a very strong player who would really take no prisoners.

Even in club football, if we were playing against them, he was one of the hardiest little players that I ever would have marked and in fairness to him he was never shy about getting involved and standing up for his teammates or standing up for himself. That is something that has to be held in high regard as well like.

JÓT: There were many in Meath that thought their players were not physical enough in that first game and that they would need to be more physical in the replay. What would you say about that?

TD: I think that would certainly be the case. We felt that we didn’t do ourselves justice the first day and we were delighted to get a crack at it the second day. I felt the first day that I wasn’t involved in the game at all and that I never really got stuck in so the second day I was adamant to try and do a little bit more for the team. I think that that would be a true reflection on the whole job we did. Maybe we put our shoulder to the wheel a lot better the second day.

JÓT: You certainly had more of an impact the second day. You mentioned ‘Reeling in the Years’. Your goal is also shown as one of the main highlights of the game in the clips of the replayed All-Ireland final. What are your memories of it?

TD: I remember, there might have been five minutes left, and Graham Geraghty was fouled. There was a ball kicked in and a push on the back, or a hand on the back, so when Graham had the ball the two lads, two Mayo men, Pat Holmes and Kevin Cahill I think, were arguing with the referee saying it wasn’t a free. I snuck in behind the two of them and I remember Graham, being as quick and as clever and as experienced as he was giving me a quick ball in. So, the angle it came in at I knew I wasn’t going to score from there, so I had to try and get it by the goalie.

I tipped it with my toe to get it by the goalie. He kind of half-pulled me back. In the meantime, there was a couple of Mayo lads that got back on the line, but it was just lucky that it went through Kevin Cahill’s legs. It is something that if you tried it again a million times it would probably never happen. I was just delighted when I saw it hitting the net.

It brought us right back into the game again. It brought us back to level terms, I think. Then, Brendan Reilly’s brilliant point at the end secured the win for us after that.

JÓT: It must have been a huge honour for you to captain the team that year. What do you remember about going back to your club Dunderry and to your people with the Sam Maguire Cup? How special was it to have clubmates on the team with you?

TD: Ye, there was Barry O’Callaghan and Stephen O’Rourke from Dunderry there too. I think we came back through Dunboyne. Everywhere we came through there were bonfires the whole way along the way because we hadn’t won the All-Ireland since 1988. I, myself, was beat in All-Irelands in 1990 and 1991 against Cork and Down so I had thought at that stage that I was never going to get a chance to win an All-Ireland medal.

On the way back through all the towns and villages there were bonfires and people lining the streets. There was a massive crowd in Trim where Darren Fay was from. Then, when we got back to Dunderry there was a queue maybe half a mile outside of the village until we got to the local hall, the community hall. There were maybe 15 or 20 thousand people around the village.

Just to bring the cup on to the stage where, I remember Billy Bligh and Father Heaney and my mother and father. It was just such a joyous occasion to bring it back to your home, to your town, to where all the people you grew up with and went to school with. It was just a unique experience. It is just something you can’t describe.

To do something like that, to win an All-Ireland and bring the Sam Maguire Cup back to your own village or to your own town is something the lotto won’t do for you or that money can’t buy. It’s just a special feeling. 

I’m sure all the girls will know exactly what I’m talking about after last Sunday as well, to do that kind of thing and to meet all the people, your family and your friends and everything. It’s just a unique occasion.

JÓT: You have mentioned Seán Boylan a few times. How special was it to have played under Seán?

TD: Whatever kind of man he was, whatever he said you just stood to attention straight away and you listened to everything he had to say.

Something that he always did was that he stood up for his players. Win, lose or draw you never heard him criticising anyone of his players. He just filled them with, we were always oozing with confidence. It didn’t always work out, but we always had lots of confidence within ourselves that he would have given us over the years.

You probably can’t put it into words what he has done for Meath over the years and what he has done with certain individuals. He maybe brought in mediocre players and made really fine county footballers out of them and just with the opposition as well, he always had the utmost respect for the opposition.

He’d tell you everything about the so-called weaker teams who we were playing at the time. The week before the match on a Monday or Tuesday he would concentrate totally on the team you were playing. It could be Wicklow. It could be Roscommon. It could be Kerry. It didn’t matter who it was.

He talked about them for a couple of days, and he got his point across so well that you didn’t take any team for granted. These were people who were proud to be playing Gaelic football and he could tell you the history of the county you were playing against and the past players that played for them.

You were on your toes. You were always on your toes thinking, Jesus, we better do our stuff here or we could be caught on the hop. Then, for the rest of the week he would just concentrate on our game after that. Him and his selectors would concentrate on what we had to do. But for a couple of days during the week before a game he would concentrate totally on the opposition team.

JÓT: What about his training techniques Tommy? Many people talk about Tara, Gormanstown, Dalgan Park, the canal etc. What were the sessions like?

TD: Those were just bearable, but I think the worst ones we did were when we went to Lanzarote one year. We were climbing up the sand dunes in about 45 degrees of heat I think – the few of us that were there. We must have been out playing in the league the week after when we came home but we were crawling on our hands and knees up this elevated sand dune and the heat of the sand was just unreal.

He always believed in the heat and the sun. He believed it was great for the bones and great for the body and all this kind of thing, but I remember when I was crawling beside PJ Gillic. I remember PJ saying, well that’s it. He’s definitely gone f##kin’ mad now altogether. We all took into a fit of laughter.

They were great memories. The Hill of Tara. The rowing boats behind Micky Lyons’ house on the back of Garadice above on the Royal Canal. There was something different every year. He even got Juddmonte Stud above beside the canal involved as well. He incorporated that, when you could run around the track. How he got into these places I don’t know. He obviously had great contacts and that kind of thing.

We’d have to run around after rowing the boat on the canal, so it was savage training. He always felt that the rowing of the boats was for your upper body strength. It was before the days of strength and conditioning, so he was way ahead of his time.

He even had Brian Smith there who was a psychologist for want of a better word, who would always have a chat with you, give you plenty of advice and that kind of thing. He always had a great backroom team with him, men like Éamon O’Brien and Frank Foley as well.

Mackey Regan the masseuse and even down to Eoin Lynch, the fella that brought the water. He was in position around Croke Park where he’d throw the bottles of water into you if you wanted a drink. He had everything in place to a tee, off to a fine art.

JÓT: Real character building? It must have built some bond between you all because you would have persevered together through tough training like that. It must also have stood to you off the field of play?

TD: Absolutely, look, ye, we had a great bond between the whole lot of us. We always had a great bit of fun together anywhere we ever went. Even for future days down the road for the work end of it or if you were self-employed or that you knew if you were having bad days you’d have to stick at it and get through it.

From my own point of view, in the job I was at I was out in all kinds of weather and people roaring or shouting for oil deliveries you knew you had to keep going until everyone was sorted out and you’d head for another day again. In theory it wasn’t a whole lot different to the football because that was instilled in you, right up to your occupation.

JÓT: We’ll switch the subject a bit, Tommy. You came on the scene in 1990 so you were a part of the epic four game thriller with Dublin in 1991. What are your overriding memories of those games?

TD: I think I was a sub in one of them. I might have come on in one of them. No, I was dropped for the last one, Seán Kelly my club mate got injured so I actually started then the last one. I was lucky to start them all but in ’91, but I remember in ’90 the first time we played in Dublin, and I was marking Keith Barr. For some reason, when I think of it now it seems very silly, but before each game I ever marked him in we didn’t shake hands after we went over to take up our position before the game, or before the National Anthem. We never shook hands. It just seems so ridiculous now to think back at that.

There was always a little bit of a feud between Meath and Dublin then, but it was a good healthy rivalry and in fairness when the games were over, we always went and had a few drinks together, a bit of craic. We even played with Leinster in the provincial tournament, we always had a great bit of fun with the Dublin players. They were great characters. Once the game was over that was it.

JÓT: They were tough matches. I remember Vinny Murphy jokingly tweeting a while back that he still slept with the light on years after been marked by Mick Lyons.

TD: Ye, I know that people came from Wexford, Wicklow even down as far as Waterford, because I would have met them coming out of Croke Park after games. They came up to see Meath and Dublin games because of the physicality of the game. They were fierce tussles altogether and I suppose if you look at some of the crunching tackles made, people paid money to see that kind of thing, but you just got up and got on with it. You had to be man enough to get up and get on with it!

They were great battles and it made it all the sweeter when you beat Dublin because, and they felt the very same as well, because there was such a great rivalry there between the two teams. There was always only a kick of the ball between the two teams as well, so it definitely made it all the sweeter when you beat the Dubs.

JÓT: Did you enjoy the rivalry and the physicality at the time? Did it help drive you on?

TD: Well, you didn’t enjoy it at the time because you were under such immense pressure and you were getting thumped left, right and centre. Lads would tell you before a game to go out and enjoy the game. You’d only ever enjoy the game when the game was over and you were after putting your heart and soul into it, when you can sit down beside the men that you went to war with, so to speak, and you could say ‘by jaysus we put in a fair effort today and we got a great win’.

There were always celebrations afterwards. You went and had a few drinks. You won a Leinster final, and you were maybe gone for a few drinks on the Monday where is nowadays when I look at the game you find it very hard to know, are the players actually enjoying it unless when they eventually win an All-Ireland. Are they enjoying it because there is so much at stake, and it has gone so professional?

Now when the game is over, they are gone straight back into recovery mode straight away. They don’t even get to meet the supporters or go for a few drinks or anything. I think all that is gone out of the game.

They can’t even talk to a reporter. You know he has a job to do as well, and they can’t give him a few lines to write a bit of a story the next day about, so you know it is all totally different. It’s like a game of chess now.

JÓT: Despite the huge rivalry between Dublin and Meath it was very hard for both sets of supporters not to have utmost respect for each other’s players. Did you feel there was a huge respect between the players of both sides at the time?

TD: Well, we would have felt that everyone in the country was against us at the time when we were playing. I had the two eras. The era with Mick Lyons, the end of that ’88 All-Ireland team. They were there for a couple of years after and then I had all these young lads as well so we certainly would have felt no matter where you went you were the ‘hated enemy’. It was a bit like Man. United in the soccer. I suppose when you are winning, and you have the success everyone wants to hate you after that.

If Limerick win another couple of All-Irelands, they are going to be hated. Dublin are probably hated because they are so successful – not in a bad way but it’s just everyone wants to see someone else win. They want to see change and that is it. That is probably the way it was with us at the time.

JÓT: In 1996 you got a gash under the eye and there was an iconic photo taken of you. Was it Keith Barr, Johnny Barr or an iron bar?

TD: A mixture of the whole lot!! That was in ‘96, in the Leinster final. I remember going down on a ball in the early part of the game and Keith came in with a knee just as I was going down on the ball. It just struck me on the side of my head, and I had to get four or five stitches.

I was swiped off the field straight away and into the dressing room and Jack Flynn who was a brilliant doctor, he was the team doctor, he gave me four or five stitches and I went back out onto the field again.

I remember after all the celebrations after winning the game, I was coming up the steps under the Cusack Stand, where the dressing rooms were at the time. There was a grid they used to pull across the tunnel to stop the supporters from coming down. As I was running up the steps, I was going over to talk to Marty Morrissey or Ger Canning I think, but as I was flying up the steps, I didn’t see this grid. I split my head off the top of the grid, and I had to get four or five stitches in the top of my head. I think I ended up with ten stitches between the eye and the head!

Anyway, I remember coming out of Croke Park that day and some Dublin supporter says, ‘Jaysus’, he says ‘Keith Barr couldn’t put him down, Johnny Barr couldn’t put him down and a f##kin’ iron bar couldn’t put him down.’

It doesn’t take the Dubs long to pick up a quick one on you!

JÓT: Right so, in ‘99 you were plagued with injuries, but you did get on to win your second All-Ireland title with Meath. What are your biggest memories of that year with the Royals?

TD: Ye, I was going well. It felt good in ’99 and I remember I used to have trouble with the asthma. I ended up going to Blanchardstown, up to the James Connolly Hospital, to a fella called Dr. Conor Burke. He got me on the right inhalers and got my breathing right, so I felt good in ’99.

I remember the first game against Offaly we had a good win. I was corner forward. Graham (Geraghty) was full forward and Ollie (Murphy) was in the other corner. After the game I just got a tremendous pain in my back, more or less straight away after the game. It just so happened it was a bulged disc that I got, so I was out for the Leinster final and the semi-final of the All-Ireland. I just about got back for the All-Ireland final against Cork.

I never really had the same mobility or anything like that after coming back because they paired the disc in my back away from the nerve. I tried my damnedest to get back again. In fairness to Boylan in the last minute or two he put me on. I think it was more or less the last hurrah more than anything else.

I did come back the following year. We were beaten by Offaly in the first round. That was it after that. It was time to go after that and leave it to the next generation.

JÓT: So, you knew?

TD: Ye, I knew at that stage.

JÓT: We’ll move on so, to today. The Meath minors had a great year winning the Tom Markham Cup followed, of course, by the success of the Meath ladies last week. They seemed to have played without fear against Dublin. What did you make of it all?

TD: Well first off, I was delighted for a local man here, Mickey McFadden, and Cathal (Ó Bric) lives over the road in Wilkinstown, so he’s in the parish as well.

They have had those young lads since under 14 so they knew every one of them inside out and they knew their strengths and their weaknesses. They could coach them along. I think they got the best of coaching and encouragement and everything else that goes with it.

But it just goes to show if you can get the right crop of lads and get the very best out of them over a couple of years, you are likely to do anything. The same as the women. They have been there the last few years with Éamonn Murray as well and he had a very good backroom team with him. They have got the very best out of them.

At the end of the day there is nobody that is, there are very good teams in the country in hurling and football, but really there is no one that is not capable of being beaten on any given day, if you have the belief to go out and do it.

Unfortunately, against Dublin over the last few years, I think teams are beaten before they go out on the field at all because they are coming up against the might of the Dubs and it is as if they are four or five points down before the ball is thrown in. You really have to go out with no fear at all, as the Meath ladies did against Dublin last Sunday. Just take off all the shackles, throw caution to the wind and just go at it.

Express yourself as much as you possibly can. I think that that is the problem particularly with Gaelic football. It is not as much so with hurling. They are so wound up with tactics and how they are going to play against an opposing team that they forget what to do. They forget the basics then when they get the ball. In fairness to the women, I think you see an awful lot more kicking of the ball then you do with men’s football because they are too busy over and back, across the field and holding on to possession.

Whereas the women didn’t care if they made a mistake or not. They just fought tooth and nail to get the ball back again. It is just my interpretation of it.

JÓT: That is interesting. Is it fear? Mayo, who will play this weekend, never seemed to fear playing Dublin. There was never much more than a kick of the ball between the sides.

TD: Absolutely, and they could have beaten Dublin in a number of All-Irelands. Sure, they were very unfortunate with a couple of own goals that they let in and that kind of thing. Whatever it was about Mayo, they never feared Dublin.

They may have feared other teams, but they never feared Dublin and I think, maybe, they will probably go out with the same spirit next Saturday against Tyrone as well. Mayo, if they can put it together, are a very hard team to beat. You saw them against Dublin the last day. Once them young lads let go, they just didn’t care. They ran at the Dublin defence, and they didn’t care if they made a mistake. They tried to open up Dublin and that is how they got their few scores.

JÓT: Getting back to Meath, Tommy, do you think this is a turning point for the county’s fortunes?

TD: I think the last three weeks, looking at the ladies and the minors, it definitely brought a buzz back and it brought memories back. I don’t think we shouted as much since we played Louth in the Leinster final in 2010. That is a long time ago, so you are hoping that maybe some of them under 20s that John McCarthy had, would make it.

I think that maybe half a dozen of them should be brought in for the coming year. Blood them young lads. You might get a couple of results along the way, give them the opportunity and get them ready for the championship.

Then you will have these minors coming the following two years. There is nothing to stop us, I don’t think. I think the future is bright with underage football in the county so there is nothing to stop us getting back up there and getting up the steps at Croke Park winning a Leinster or an All-Ireland again.

JÓT: There have been stories going around outside of Meath, in particular, for years that you were as good a hurler as you were a footballer. Would you like to shed a light on that?

TD: I actually enjoyed the hurling more when I was playing it, when I was a youngster. We had great great hurling men in Dunderry when we were youngsters with Mickey Daly and, Lord have mercy on him, Ned Howley and Tommy Weldon, Lord of mercy on Tommy who died there this year as well, and my father. They were all great hurling men.

There was a Tipperary man. He was a Garda in Trim called Jim Hickey. When we were all under 12 and under 14, he came out to train us. He had a big hurling background, so he really got stuck into the hurling in Dunderry and we ended up winning u14, u16, minor and intermediate Championships. We were beaten in a senior final back in 2001 or 2003.

The hurling was always there in Dunderry. We used to go down to Munster finals years ago to look at the likes of Nicky English and the Bonnars. Limerick were playing Cork and Teddy McCarthy was one of my favourite hurlers of all time. I used to love the way Teddy would get up to catch the ball.

You’d be trying to emulate Teddy as well which was no easy thing to do. I always had a love for hurling, but I suppose the football was first and foremost. My father was always big into the football. It was always first and foremost so I kind of took it from there.

JÓT: You were a selector with Meath during Colm Coyle’s tenure between 2006 and 2008. You have mentioned Colm here a few times. You must have had a very good relationship with him?

TD: He played in the Centenary Cup in 1984, which was a long, long time ago and I came in at the back end of ’89 so I’m sure he was well in his twenties at that stage. Himself and Martin O’Connell, the two of them were still there in ’96 and that was some feat. To be there from ‘84 to ‘96. That is something else.

Coyle was a very wholehearted player. He would have been a very sore loser. We all would have been very sore losers. We hated losing but at the same time you had to be gracious in defeat. He always was. I think that losing always drove you forward again for the next day that you went out to try and produce the goods and perform so, you know, I suppose looking back on it we always think of the ones we didn’t win.

Coyler was there in ‘90 and ‘91 as well when we lost two All-Irelands that time, so you always think of the ones that you lost more than the ones you won. He was a fair warrior, and it was a joy to get out and play alongside him because you knew he was going to give his best.

JÓT: …and what about that management team? Looking back on it now, did you learn anything from it? Was it more challenging than you would have expected?

TD: I enjoyed it for the couple of years, but I just wonder where people do get the time to do that kind of thing. I do wonder where Andy McEntee gets the time and all these other county managers because it just takes up so much time, and it’s gone up a couple of notches since we were there even.

You were gone practically four nights a week. Anyone with young kids…I was leaving three or four nights a week. The kids were young here at the time. I was just lucky that I was married to a good GAA woman who understood the GAA, because if you weren’t it could cause an awful lot of difficulties. It’s a great excuse to get out of the house at the same time!!

I enjoyed it immensely. We did well. We were unlucky against Dublin in the Leinster semi-final. We got a draw and ended up playing them in a replay. Dublin were going well at the time and then the same year a Cork team beat us in the All-Ireland semi-final.

The following year Limerick beat us in the qualifiers so that was a bit of a downer. After that I swore, I would never get involved with a county team again because it is far too time consuming. You really really have to have to be cut out for it I think.

JÓT: You mentioned your father Tommy a few times in the interview. He sadly passed away this year. You have a big day out in Croke Park on Saturday at the 2021 All-Ireland final representing the winning Meath team of ’96. I’m sure it will be tainted with sadness that your dad cannot be there to see it.

TD: It will be. It will be bittersweet all right. He died on the 10th of March there from COPD. He was fond of the cigarettes as you probably know, Jamie. He liked a few drinks and a bit of craic as well. He certainly had no regrets in life anyway.

He would have been looking on proudly next Saturday I suppose with us carrying the Sam Maguire Cup back onto the pitch after 25 years, but I am sure he’ll be looking down on us and my mother will be very proud. My mother would be very proud of the whole occasion as well.

It certainly will be bittersweet because he was so into the football. He always went to the games in Croke Park. I am told that you would never know that he was my father because he’d never be shouting, roaring, or bawling. He was always very calm at games win, lose or draw. He wouldn’t be blowing your trumpet in any shape or form but if you didn’t play well, you would be certainly told!

He loved his football and he enjoyed life. I hope to go out and do him proud next Saturday after 25 years waiting to bring the cup back onto the field again.

JÓT: I am sure he was very proud of you and his family, Tommy, and would have loved to see you on Saturday.

Before I let you go, I have a few quick fire questions for you!

Mayo or Tyrone?

TD: I think it could be Mayo’s year. If they go at it the way they did against Dublin the last day, but they’d have to move the ball as fast as they ever did before because, as we all know, Tyrone can bottle you up very quick and make life very awkward for you.

I think your man is a revelation, this Pádraig O’Hora fella at corner back. I think he’s like a Viking or something going round. If you were going to war, he’d be the first man you’d be bringing with you. I think Mayo have been short a man like him for years. Someone that will get really stuck in when the chips are down and will put in a really strong tackle when it has to be done. That’s something that will lift the whole team. He is a true inspiration. He just plays off the cuff. He has no fear. He doesn’t care who he is marking or who he is playing against. All he wants to do is get out and play football.

I think the young half forwards they have as well, and the corner forwards they have will just about get them over the line but will certainly be a fair but intense battle and I think if it’s a good day, and the weather is due to be good, it will favour the Mayo team as well because they are capable of playing some great open football.

It’ll be a tremendous battle and if you beat Tyrone in a game, you will know you are after being in a game. There is no doubt about that.

JÓT: The best player in the country at present?

TD: I’d say its Pádraig O’Hora. I have an awful lot of admiration for him. I think he’s fantastic.

JÓT: Best hurler in the country at present?

TD: It would have to be Cian Lynch from Limerick. He’s just a joy to watch and the way he can deliver a handpass, he reminds me a little bit of DJ (Carey) when he was playing as well. The way he could do something just in a blink of an eye. There are some serious hurlers in that Limerick team. It will take a fair team to topple them next year.

JÓT: Best player to play with?

TD: Trevor Giles certainly was the best team player. I am often asked who is the best player I ever played along with but there is a bit of a difference. Geraghty was probably the best individual maybe that I played with, someone that could just do something amazing and win a game for you, but overall I think that Giles never had a bad game for Meath. I think he was the best all round player of the generation I played in.

JÓT: Best player to play against?

TD: I think Keith Barr would definitely be the toughest player I played against. Barr or Heery. They’d be tough as nails. If they could nail you, they would but they’d come over to you smiling afterwards as if nothing ever happened. They were great characters.

JÓT: Best club memory?

TD: I think that the best club memory was bringing the Keegan Cup back to Dunderry in ’95. I think that was the best memory of all, coming on the trailer from the graveyard at the edge of the village. That was brilliant. It is something that won’t be forgotten.

JÓT: Best County memory?

TD: I think probably winning in ’91 in the last of the drawn games was as good as the All-Ireland. That last game of the saga against Dublin because it was such an epic battle that eventually we had just scraped over the line by beating them by a point. That was fantastic.

Certainly, the worst memory was losing the All-Ireland in ’91 against Down after getting that far. That was horrendous and afterwards I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to win an All-Ireland, never mind captaining my County to one.

JÓT: Thanks for that, Tommy. Go raibh míle maith agat.