Losers nourished and winners drained

Leinster SFC First round/Kildare v Meath: Tom Humphriesrelives the 1997 Leinster semi-final marathon between Kildare and Meath with key players

In Meath they look back on the time with gentle sentimentality. It was that period when they were young and when they were kings. All-Ireland champions and the team who had just digested the Dubs for the second summer in a row. They were young, gifted and royal.

In Kildare the memories are sweet too. They recall a diffident team shedding their native frailty and learning to hustle. Mick O'Dwyer was back among them and his second coming would surely see them place a mark on the pristine Lilywhite ledger sheet of achievements. Sure, Kildare lost after four hours of summer football, but perversely, they were nourished by the experience. Meath, on the other hand, were drained.

Ten years ago they imagined different futures for themselves when Seán Boylan came to the Kildare dressingroom after the third game and told the beaten Kildare players it was hard to pick a losing side from all the fine football which had gone before.

Perhaps you then recalled 1995 when Dublin put a young Meath side away by 10 points, noting they had seen the kids but they hadn't seen the whizz, and then you thought of the following summer when the kids stood like men and played with whizz, maybe then you knew what was coming down the line.

Probably, but you were in a minority. If you recalled Kildare's anaemic displays against Dublin and Meath in the years of Micko's first tenure you probably went for a family picnic thinking to listen for the result later.

If you did, if certainty dulled your curiosity, you regretted it. There were 46,598 in Croke Park for the first game, a record for a Leinster semi-final back then. Their number was swollen by the first course.

Kildare had lost two of their full-forward line in the first quarter of an hour against Laois in Croke Park a month previously. Miraculously they had won. At the time that was a most atypical thing for Kildare to do. To be offered an excuse and to shove it away.

Meath, All-Ireland champions, had seen Dublin off again in a wonderful game of football a week after that. It was all set up nicely when Pat O'Toole of Longford threw in the ball on July 6th.

At the time Ollie Murphy was just 22 and after a fine minor career had worked his way in from the fringes after Bernard Flynn's knee and hip injuries finished his playing days in 1995. He'd scored 1-1 against Dublin in the first round. This would be his time.

Ollie Murphy: "One thing I most remember was that I scored a point down into the Canal End with one of the first kicks in the first game and the umpire waved it wide. I went in complaining and the ref told me to get away. I said to him, 'You'll be sorry when you watch The Sunday Game tonight.' Sure enough, Pat Spillane said that night Meath really won by a point."

Ollie had mixed feelings about the point being disallowed. There was plenty of time left and he didn't want to upset his marker too much.

Ollie Murphy: "I was marking Davy Dalton. Davy was after milling me out of it. Softening me up, as we said in them days. I thought, Jesus he's going to kill me. Big Ronan Quinn was full back and he hurt his fingers and had to go off. They put Davy in full back and I was delighted. Quinn was probably a big loss to Kildare that day. He was a hell of a footballer."

As it happened, Dalton would win an All Star that year at full back.

Davy Dalton: "I had retired. Two weeks before they played Laois I got a call to come back. At the time I was playing well with the club and I was delighted to go back. I was fresh and fit. I got an All Star that year and a Leinster medal the year after. I'd been playing 13 years before that and won nothing. Luck has a big part to play in things."

They had little luck that day despite playing well. Meath never led and were three point down at half-time having been sucker-punched early by a Martin Lynch goal. Into the second half people waited for Kildare to fold. It didn't quite happen.

Trevor Giles: "It was a time when Kildare were written off as having no bottle but you knew from playing against them they had plenty of it. They had a good team. Niall Buckley got a couple of man of the matches in the series. They had leaders . They were very fit."

Sos Dowling: "Beating Laois had given us great belief. We were a team always doubting ourselves. In various tough games before that we just didn't have that belief."

They left it behind the first day. Giles got a late point to equalise for Meath. Buckley missed a 45 at the death.

Day two loomed. The best of the three games by far, which stands as one of the best of the last 15 or 20 years. The scoreline of 2-20 to 3-17 after extra-time tells the story almost on its own.

Kildare almost had the game won in normal time. Giles, though, the reigning footballer of the year, was at his peak. He scored 2-8 for Meath that day. Each one vital.

Sos Dowling: "I remember Trevor that day. Everything went through him. He was throwing the ball around a lot, bringing other fellas into the game all the time. And scoring anytime he wanted to."

Kildare led by three points going to the death.

Trevor Giles: "I think that was the highest total I ever scored. I had one penalty in the second half after Tommy Dowd was fouled. It was saved by Christy Byrne. Davy Dalton kicked the rebound out over the sideline. I got a goal from the sideline ball that came in. I was very relieved. I wouldn't display too much emotion but I did on that occasion."

Ollie Murphy: "I kicked in the sideline ball that we equalised from. The abuse I was getting! It was tense that day. Lads throwing plastic bottles at me and everything. I know how Cristiano Ronaldo feels now."

So to extra-time. It was a warm day and hard ground. Referee Pat O'Toole pulled up with cramp. John Bannon stepped in to finish the game. In training with Meath some of the best fun was had with the flyers of the team racing each other looking for bragging rights. Paddy Reynolds, Graham Geraghty, Evan Kelly and Jody Devine had serious heat. When Boylan looked to his bench late in normal time he knew what he wanted.

Declan Kerrigan: "The second match was very topsy-turvy. A very good game. We were in control into extra-time. The abiding memory is that both sets of players were out on our feet in extra-time after such a fast and open match and the real impact was Seán Boylan bringing on fresh players.

"Graham Geraghty was sent off and Anthony Rainbow had been the extra man in normal time. Anthony did an awful lot of running. Seán Boylan was smart. He moved Jody out on to Anthony. Putting a fresh player on a player who was exhausted. As a result, Jody dragged Meath back into the game. Everyone was out on their feet. I just remember Jody running riot."

Sos Dowling: "I was on Jody. They brought him on with 10 minutes to go in normal time. We went ahead in the first half of extra-time and they switched Jody out the wing in the second half of extra-time and he scored four points from there. He got unbelievable points. Meath are Meath. Nothing easy ever."

Jody Devine: "It's hard to remember. We were six points down at the break in extra-time. Seán said to go at them. To run at them and try to get scores or get frees. I missed a goal at the end of the first period of extra-time. Should have put it over the bar but it was saved anyway. Fellas were getting tired and knackered. Seeing as I was fresh I was told to move out between the half-forward line and midfield and to get on the ball as much as possible."

What people forget is that in Croke Park on the best day of the year there is always a breeze. Kildare would need a point to equalise the game at the death of extra-time. It would be the only score of the entire period of extra-time scored into the Hill End. It was a fisted score taken by Paul McCormack, who had been on the field for two minutes. And regrets? Kildare's wides tally for the afternoon was 22.

The cost of the games was beginning to be noticed now. Graham Geraghty's sending off would cost him a Leinster final place.

The third and final game would see Mark O'Reilly and Darren Fay dismissed. Kildare lost two also. Dalton's was the harshest dismissal. The ball came off the Kildare corner back Martin Ryan and Brendan Reilly dived on it with great courage. Dalton had made his move fractionally slower. Television replays cleared him.

Davy Dalton: "The referee was standing beside me and he saw nothing wrong with it. It was the umpire that got me sent off and if you look at it from the point of view that the umpire had it looked like I had (fouled him). From another angle it cleared me.

"These things happen. They're part and parcel of it. Probably another couple of times I should have got sent off and I didn't. So it balances itself out.

"It did and it didn't have an impact. They had lads sent off as well. It's hard to tell. If you were being big-headed you could say it had an impact but I might have dropped a few balls if I'd been on. I made a few mistakes in the games before that which should have been done and dusted. So you don't know."

Meath at that time had the sort of forward line other teams dream of. Giles had Tommy Dowd, Murphy and Geraghty riding shotgun most days. If one of them didn't shoot the lights out another did. On the third day it was Murphy's shift. He scored 1-4.

Ollie Murphy: "The last day Brendan Reilly was injured during the game and I was left up front on my own. We were a man down most of the time. It worked to our advantage. Kildare were attacking and attacking. There was loads of room for me up front. The goal, I just remember Brendan feeding it to me and then putting it away."

Trevor Giles: "The third day was a wet day, a bit more dour. Darren Fay and Mark O'Reilly were sent off. We were the better team that day but it cost us in the long term. We were beaten. I'm not sure how drained we were. Graham was sent off the second day. Martin O'Connell slipped a disc in his back the morning of the Offaly game. We were down a good few personnel."

Declan Kerrigan: "Irrespective of whether you have a week or two between games you get tired mentally in a series like that. We didn't have the same sharpness or freshness. You need more time. Meath went ahead in the second half. It looked as if we would get back when I got a goal but it didn't happen. I remember after the match talking to the Meath players. They were wiped. Half their defence was gone for the final."

Offaly beat Meath in the Leinster final. Devine didn't get a start in either the third game of the series or the Leinster final. The disappointment hasn't lingered.

Jody Devine: "Seán always said it was all for the team. If it wasn't you today it would be you another day. That's what we believed. That's Meath football."

Kildare were strengthened by the experience.

Davy Dalton: "Up till then with Micko we'd maybe played four times in Croke Park. We played four times in short succession. We had our own spots in the dressingroom. It's a learning curve. If you were gone in the first round you were starting from scratch the next year. Meath had that confidence and experience. They had an All-Ireland. We were looking back to 1956 to remember seeing a Kildare team winning. We got loads of experience that summer."

Sos Dowling: "Those two years of 1997 and 1998 we weren't the Kildare team of old. We didn't bottle. We were hardened and strengthened.

"If we had lost to Laois that year I would have packed it in. It was getting beaten and beaten that killed us. We said we'd give it another lash. I was 12-and-a-half stone when the series started. I'd lost nearly three-quarters of a stone at the end of the series. Nothing easy. So hard and physical."

Declan Kerrigan: "We took great heart out of it. We felt afterwards we were capable of playing against the best teams. Meath were one of those. We took a more positive attitude than we might have done previously. The beauty is the memories. You can't put a price on that."

The following year Kildare reached the All-Ireland final as Leinster champions. They beat Meath along the way. Dream-time.

This has the makings of a cracking championship encounter as both teams appear to be rising again after a quiet few years, and would also kill for the chance to play Dublin on June 3rd. For that and many other reasons it's a hard game to call.

There's stability and experience in both teams, especially Meath, with manager Colm Coyle naming the same 15 that beat Roscommon in the recent Division Two final. That means no place for Graham Geraghty, who is busy enough on the election campaign anyway, although he is sure to be ready if needed. Full back Darren Fay makes his return after a two-year absence and brings some fear factor back to the Meath defence.

Meath weren't exactly dazzling in their Division Two success but they certainly showed sparks of their old ability, especially as forwards like Joe Sheridan and Brian Farrell mature.

Kildare, however, were one of surprises of Division One B this year, testing all the best teams and finally drawing with Laois, enough to send them into the semi-final against the eventual champions, Donegal. That was a game they could easily have won and confidence will certainly be high.

Manager John Crofton has been more unlucky with injuries, with midfielders Dermot Earley and Killian Brennan both out injured, and rising star Tomás O'Connor. That partly forces the championship debuts for Emmet Bolton at left half back and Mikey Conway at left corner forward, while last year's full back Kevin O'Neill and Ross Glavin take up the heavy ropes at midfield.

With John Doyle arguably the best free-taker in the county and Tadhg Fennin back to his best, Kildare have some real threat up front, and fitness-wise, they're among the sharpest in the land. It may not be a high-scoring affair but it's sure to be close.

KILDARE: E Murphy; E Callaghan, D Lyons, A McLoughlin; A Rainbow, M Hogarty, E Bolton; K O'Neill, R Glavin; J Kavanagh, P O'Neill, K Donnelly; T Fennin, J Doyle, M Conway.

MEATH: B Murphy; E Harrington, D Fay, N McKeague; C King, A Moyles, S Kenny; M Ward, N Crawford; N McLoughlin, K Reilly, P Byrne; S Bray, B Farrell, J Sheridan.