It’s been 16 years since Jordan Morris first ran onto Croke Park in a moment of hysterical celebration. Meath had just beaten Louth to win the 2010 Leinster Senior Football Championship and just like any impressionable youngster, Morris was lured into a false sense that this would be the norm.
The timing of it was aptly persuasive too, given Morris, who was 10, had recently moved the six-mile distance from Kingscourt in Cavan to Nobber in Meath – the county he now considers home. He’s since returned to play his club football with Kingscourt, but the green and gold of Meath runs deep in his veins. It is the only county he’s ever wanted to play for.
“I remember running out onto the pitch, probably the last time that was allowed,” Morris says of his 2010 experience. “Sure, as a young lad, you just think this is going to happen every year. When it doesn’t, it can feel like a bit of a barren spell.”
Indeed, Dublin had other ideas. Meath had beaten them in the 2010 Leinster semi-final, but Dublin rebounded by winning the next 14 Leinster provincial titles.
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So, when Meath took out Dublin in last year’s Leinster semi-final – a game Morris missed through injury – it felt like the Royals’ fortunes had finally changed again. Only for Louth to beat them in the Leinster final to win their first provincial football title since 1957.
Still, 2025 was unquestionably a breakout year for the fiery Meath forward – especially cherished given the realisation it might never have happened. In a league game against Louth at the end of March last year, Morris sustained a grade-two tear of the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments of his knee. He was effectively told his season was over.
Morris avoided surgery, rehabbed vigorously three or four times a day and was back playing less than two months later, coming off the bench against Louth. He hasn’t looked back since and is in the form of his life ahead of Sunday’s Leinster Senior Football Championship quarter-final against Westmeath in Tullamore.
“I’ve no problems with the knee at all now, hopefully it will stay that way. But it’s not a worry, or any fear. If I let myself think that way, I probably wouldn’t go for half as many balls as I do. It’s just about keeping the mind clear of it, because the body is all good.
“I’m one of the lucky ones. Jack Kinlough, a couple of weeks later, tore his ACL completely in the Leinster championship against Carlow and he’s been out since. I got off lightly.”
In the weeks after the Louth defeat, Meath beat Kerry in the All-Ireland group stages, then beat Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-final – Morris scoring 1-6 from play and later being named GPA Player of the Month for June. Although Donegal subsequently beat them in the semi-final, 3-26 to 0-15, Morris finished the season with an All Star nomination, before helping Kingscourt win back a Cavan club title for the first time in 10 years.
In any other year, beating Dublin, Kerry and Galway in the one championship would surely have earned some piece of silverware. Meath ended up with nothing. Even so, the players took considerable heart.
Morris adds: “It probably just backs up what we’re doing on the training field, to be honest. And gives you that extra bit of confidence. After the Dublin game, especially, that we can hang with these boys. Obviously Donegal knocked us back a peg or two, but we took great learnings from that.”
For Meath manager Robbie Brennan, now in his second season, those learnings included the need to tighten up defensively. He brought on board Aaron Kernan from Armagh, the four-time Ulster championship winner and three-time All-Ireland club winner with Crossmaglen.
“He’s been a great addition, just to bring in that extra bit of defensive steeliness,” says Morris. “Just small things, like positioning of your feet, if you’re a tackler. Your communications going into a tackle, even. I think that’s shown in a few games this year, with the likes of Brian O’Halloran really stepping up.”
Beating Cork to win the Division Two title in Croke Park last month earned Meath their first piece of silverware under Brennan, Morris capped that promotion run as the third highest scorer in the division with his 3-32 – behind Sam Mulroy from Louth (2-43) and Derry’s Shane McGuigan (1-43).
Meath had eight different scorers against Cork last month, Morris among them, and he credits Brennan for developing that platform for player freedom.
“He’s been massive, so confident, such a breath of fresh air. It kind of shines through in us, in a way – the way we express ourselves. And he allows us to do that. He’s just football mad, pushing us on every night in training and in every game.
“We’d never thought, ‘we’re going in against Dublin and we’re not going to win’, but it’s just the different kind of confidence Robbie is bringing. From day one, he said we were going to do special things together. That was the message he sent out.
“Of course it would mean a lot for Meath to win Leinster again, it’s something the county has been longing for. But we’re not putting that pressure on ourselves. We’ve a first round to get past first. We know the group of lads we have, it’s just about producing it over and over.”
