The curtain was brought down on a fair bit of history at Croke Park yesterday with the GAA's last All-Ireland final of the millennium and the last to played in front of the Hogan Stand scheduled for demolition in the months ahead.

Also demolished were Cork's dreams of ending the decade as they had started it - by adding the football All-Ireland to the hurling crown won a fortnight previously. The demolition men in this case were experts. Meath moved into overdrive in the closing 10 minutes, picked up nearly every breaking ball and kicked the three points necessary for a winning margin.

Among the happiest of the spectators was Ireland International Rules manager Colm O'Rourke who, as well as seeing his county come out on top, also saw the match concluded. A draw and replay would have deprived O'Rourke of an array of heavy hitters for the two-test series in Australia as the Irish players jet off later this week.

Meath were winning their seventh All-Ireland and move into clear fourth place on the roll of honour - Galway having kept just ahead of them with last year's win. Of these seven titles, four have been masterminded by Sean Boylan in the course of his 18-year stint in management.

In the hour of victory he reflected on the mechanics of another successful year's team-building. Although it's only three years since the county last won the All-Ireland, there has already been a large turnover of players with only eight of yesterday's side having started in 1996.

"At the beginning," he said, "we felt we had to have every one of the 24 players feeling like they were going to be in contention to be playing. A number of them started out as boys and ended up as men. I'd even include Cormac Murphy in that because of the injury he suffered.

"We knew about Mark, we knew about Darren but you had Hank, Cormac Sullivan, Nigel Crawford and up front Donal Curtis and Ollie. They came of age in such a big way there and I'm absolutely delighted."

In a battle of the two best defences in football this season, it was Meath's which came out on top. Centre back Enda McManus had a powerful match and explained how the team had recovered just after half-time from the double blow of missing a penalty and conceding a spectacular goal to Joe Kavanagh.

"It could have been so different if we'd scored the penalty but you'd almost like the way it happened. If we had scored the penalty what would have happened? You know what I mean? It might have been Cork who got the bit between their teeth and we might have been the ones to sit back.

"But they scored a goal and that got everyone going. You looked around and you could see the heads went down and everyone just started working. No-one gave up, just put their shoulder to the wheel and tried their best."

One of the surprising things about the match was that Meath's big guns didn't start firing their full poundage until the closing period. For Trevor Giles, heavily tipped as a likely match-winner, the experience of underperforming on a big day was novel but hardly moving him to hysterics.

"Things hadn't been going great for me all day. They've a very good back-line but I was getting myself into the wrong positions maybe. I got a lot of possession but not a lot came off it.

"Then in the last 10 minutes I won a good few breaks and put over a couple of frees and got a good ball into Graham and he got a point. So you have to keep persisting. I suppose in an All-Ireland, you can't choose to play brilliantly so you just try and do the things you think will win you the game."

For Sean O hAilpin, there was quite a contrast to a fortnight ago when he helped the Cork hurlers to their All-Ireland. For a player readily identified as a weakness at full back, the dual star had the satisfaction of giving his best football championship performance for the county.

It was scant consolation for the collective disappointment as well as the personal one of missing out on becoming only the second player to win both senior All-Ireland medals in a year.

"Meath started to play after our goal rather than us," he reflected gloomily. "I thought the goal was the break we needed, but you just can't prepare too much for a team like Meath. You get one thing right and they have another to throw at you."