Meath must be wary of old boy

Monaghan v Meath Today, Clones, 4.15It's one of the more highly charged situations in Gaelic games. A manager sends out a team to defeat his own county.

There have been high-profile examples in the past: Mick O'Dwyer toppling Kerry from their All-Ireland perch in 1998, Eamonn Cregan's Offaly taking down Limerick four years earlier. Today it's Colm Coyle's turn.

Those who have spoken to the Monaghan manager say that this afternoon's draw was the last thing he wanted. He is in the midst of an exceptional first year holding the reins at inter-county level but the Bank of Ireland All-Ireland qualifier second round has paired Monaghan against Coyle's own county Meath.

For the past three decades Coyle has been associated first as a player and then as a selector with Seán Boylan's teams. Now he comes face to face with his former mentor in the weekend's most intriguing fixture. Apparently Coyle felt as soon as Meath lost last weekend's Leinster semi-final to Kildare that the draw was predestined.

Despite an, at times, unruly reputation on the field, Coyle became a successful club manager during his playing career. In 1994 he was player-coach with Seneschalstown when they reached the Leinster final and at the end of his playing days moved to St Ultan's who won a junior title under his guidance.

As a Meath player he suffered from being too versatile, playing on every line - except in goal - for the county, which made him ideal bench fodder at times but he played in all three of Meath's All-Ireland wins during his career.

After two years as a selector with Boylan, Coyle branched out to take charge of Monaghan. He's not the only link between the counties. Meath centre-fielder Charles McCarthy's father Cathal played for Monaghan and Monaghan county secretary, John Scully, is from Meath .

This is seen in Meath as a very tricky assignment within a week of a championship defeat.

It will be the team's fourth match in 21 days and, for all his discomfort at the draw, Coyle will not be slow to use his in-depth knowledge of Meath.

There is also unhappiness in Meath at the appointment of Cork's Michael Collins as match referee. He has blown the final whistle on Meath's last three champions exits, against Donegal, Galway and Offaly respectively.

Furthermore, there are some in the county who have collated statistics showing that Collins penalises them to a greater extent than other referees.

In fairness though, a team losing or struggling in a match is more likely to commit fouls. But the fact remains that the county is angry at the choice of referee.

On the field, Monaghan look as formidable a prospect as the Kildare team that beat Meath seven days ago.

Their forwards have a good scoring record with their accuracy only seriously in question during the second half of the defeat by Down.

Ray Ronaghan, Thomas and Damien Freeman and Michael Slowey have all contributed but the most prominent menace to Meath's chances is Paul Finlay whose free taking won't have done anything to ease the jitters triggered by Collins's history of awarding frees against them.

Meath were in trouble on the half-back line against Kildare and troubled by Darren Fay's lack of match practice.

That will be improved this afternoon and with Nigel Crawford and Ollie Murphy on the road to recovery, Boylan's problems are clearing. That won't matter unless they can survive this afternoon.

Given the unpredictable results that these teams have produced, confident assertions are out of the question. A diffident hunch says that Boylan isn't ready just yet to be upstaged by one of his protégés.

Dublin corner back Barry Cahill injured his knee in training on Thursday and is awaiting a scan to assess whether the cruciate ligament has been injured.

"Barry turned on his knee," according to Dublin selector Dave Billings, "but the full extent of the damage isn't known as yet. We'll have to see the scan results. I'd be pessimistic about it but I'm not a medical man so we'll hope for the best."

Another of the team's first-choice defenders, Peadar Andrews, damaged his cruciate before the championship began and the loss of another player would be a grave concern to Dublin with the Derry qualifier due in a week's time.

MEATH (SF v Monaghan): C Sullivan; N McKeigue, D Fay, C Murphy; P Reynolds, T O'Connor, H Traynor; J Cullinane, C McCarthy; E Kelly, T Giles, S McKeigue; D Regan, G Geraghty, D Crimmins.

MONAGHAN (SF v Meath): G Murphy, J Paul Mone, D McKenna, P McKenna, D Duffy, J Coyle, A Rooney, E Lennon, J Hughes, N Corrigan, T Freeman, P Finlay, M Slowey, R Ronaghan, D Freeman.