Best man delivers the perfect script

Keith Duggan talks to Meath's Graham Geraghty whose late, late match-winning goal on Saturday broke Louth hearts

The joke going around Meath is that when Graham Geraghty returned to the high table, he was disappointed to find his soup had grown cold. Even by the Meath star's standards, last Saturday was something special. It would be nice to think that, midway through his friend's wedding, at which he was best man, Geraghty quietly leaned over and said: "Just have to pop out and take care of something. Won't be a tick."

When Geraghty arrived in Páirc Táilteann in Navan at around 5.30 p.m., RTÉ's Brian Carthy did a double take. Although Carthy has a lot of championship mileage on the clock, he never dreamt of the day he'd see a player turn up for a match in shiny shoes and tails.

He had not been informed that Seán Boylan had issued a strict pre-game dress code, so natural curiosity brought him towards Geraghty. The player told him that he'd just flown up from a friend's wedding in Enniscorthy by helicopter. He would be returning immediately afterwards, probably wouldn't even be missed.

"Yeah, it was a strange old day," Geraghty said yesterday, laughing. "I suppose I left around 4.45 p.m., which was before the speeches started, unfortunately, and met up with the (Meath) lads then about half an hour later."

Whatever summer Ireland might have hoped for seemed to concentrate around Navan for that match. The venue was warm and raucous. These were strange circumstances for Meath, meeting for a home match just six days after a wholesome defeat from a Dublin side that played as if possessed.

"Immediately after that match in Croke Park, we felt we had played terribly, but looking at the video, we were coming into it quite well and actually dominated for periods. But the two goals really set us back. It is hard to recover from goals."

No kidding, responds all of Louth. With massive away support, Louth played some terrific football against Meath and have become the great hard-luck story of this year. Four points up going to injury-time, they were entitled to believe that they had at last done what was necessary to the province's most famous football county.

"It looked very bad for us," agrees Geraghty. "You just keep sort of playing on instinct. Then Richie Kealy got a goal and that gave us a slight opening. I thought we would get one more chance but when we got the ball, it broke down and Louth cleared to the other end of the field and that was it. Then it came back up along the sideline and Ollie Murphy got the ball and made a great run along the endline."

And the rest has already become legend, with Murphy somehow spying the "best man" through the crowd and flicking a quick pass. Geraghty had the ball for more or less the last kick of the game. A point would have been easy from that distance but Geraghty has always had a scorer's heart in these situations. Or maybe he was just determined to avoid extra-time in case he'd miss the throwing of the bouquet. Either way, he went low, rolling the ball into the one pocket of the Louth goalmouth that wasn't covered by sentries.

"I suppose if I'd have missed the goal I'd have looked like the biggest eejit ever. But the chance was on and I just hit it. When it went in, it was an absolutely unbelievable feeling. There was a great atmosphere in Navan anyway and the place just went crazy after the score."

It wasn't the most conventional best man's speech in the world but it was definitely one of the best. After accepting the back slaps, Geraghty did a quick spin in the nearest phone box, emerged in his splendour and flew - there was no need for the chopper for the return journey - back to the wedding party.

As great escapes go, it was one of the grandest in GAA history, with a touch of James Bond about it. But Geraghty has not had much time to dwell on it.

"We are already starting to prepare for this Saturday against Laois. I suppose we should be reasonably pleased with the draw, having avoided the likes of Kerry and Tyrone but Laois are a good, hungry young team who will fancy a crack at us.

"Louth played great football against us and you'd have to feel for them, it was a terrible way to lose a match. It took a lot out of us and ideally we would have liked a few weeks to recover. But this is the qualifiers and we have to go out and do it all again now."

But there will be no tuxedo this time - unless he wears it for luck.