Meath Machine Rolls On

That Meath are contesting tomorrow's league final must be a source of considerable disquiet to opposing squads who quietly believe they have both the artillery and verve to unhinge the All-Ireland champion's at some point in the summer.

For the majority of the winter competition, Meath exhibited the inevitable measure of fatigue and lethargy associated with the post All-Ireland months and, on many Sundays, it appeared as if the champion's were merely trying to cobble teams together, to simply gather enough fit bodies to fulfil fixtures.

But their typically late revival underlines a simple and essential truth about what lies at the heart of a complex team psyche: Meath keep playing.

Nothing demonstrated just how thoroughly the football landscape has been distorted by Meath's perceived (and apparent) invincibility as the last day of the league programme when the heart was ripped out of Sligo in Ennis.

True, Sligo played abysmally, burdened as they were with the resounding expectation that they would qualify for their first semi-final since 1974 and perhaps surprised by a combative Clare unit, but the odds were that they still might have squeezed through. Then word filtered through that Meath had snatched it on score differences. A late kick against Kildare in Navan left Sligo's aspirations in smoking ruins.

It was just an inconsequential shot by Jody Devine, which he assumed would be his last competitive pop until the championship. Meath weren't even dreaming of qualification, they were just playing time out the only way they know how.

Meath have a reflexive and collective capacity for not quitting which is so reliable it borders on dull. That quality has been a fundamental aspect of their game-plan since they re-emerged as contenders under Sean Boylan in the mid-1980s.

When Brian Stafford forced a replay with a free in the ebbing seconds of the 1988 All-Ireland final, the common argument that evening was that Meath were blessed. David Beggy, it was felt, had not been fouled prior to Stafford's reprieve and camera evidence appeared to bear that out.

But Meath's response a fortnight later offered, perhaps, the starkest illustration of their willingness to operate in extremes.

Having felt that Cork had physically intimidated them on the first Sunday, Meath returned to Croke Park in uncompromising mood.

"Without doubt we were beaten physically in the drawn game," Terry Ferguson later recalled. "Colm O'Rourke got an awful bang on the head. Brian Stafford got a couple of stitches and Mick Lyons got a bang that day. In the dressing room beforehand very little was said but we were so determined."

As a consequence, Gerry McEntee was dismissed for felling Niall Cahalane after five minutes. Although the game itself was bruising and puritan in terms of flow, the control and relentlessness with which the 14 Meath players applied themselves set them apart as a great team during a fairly grim era for the game.

Yet it was in defeat three years later that Meath's fanatical adherence to the primary rule that you keep running fully manifested itself. By 1991, public attitudes had softened towards a Meath side that housed an intriguing assortment of learned hard-men and laugh-a-minute wing forwards.

There was a sense of jaded magnificence about the side, that one good shot would have them on their knees. And when a young Down team, brash and lightning, went ahead by 1-11 to 0-5 nine minutes into the second half of that September's All-Ireland final, the writing was never plainer. At that moment, Meath seemed on the verge of a drubbing. But far from keeling over, Meath made a glorious last stand, driving at the Down defence in waves and firing 1-7 over the last 20 minutes. They also, surprisingly, failed to convert three goal opportunities, any one of which would have twisted the momentum irrevocably. It was enthralling stuff, described by Paddy Downey of this newspaper as "one of the great All-Ireland finals".

The gallant manner of this loss afforded Meath a degree of empathy with the wider public which had eluded them in their winning years of 1987/88. Attitudes towards Meath had changed in the afterglow of the breathtaking June showdown against Dublin, a grudge derby that evolved into an occasion which ultimately overshadowed the primary aim - that of progression into the second round of the Leinster competition.

The tie lurched into a wonderful and unpredictable series after PJ Gillic landed a strange equalising point which bounced leisurely over the bar, leaving a big exclamation mark at the conclusion of a riveting 70 minutes. 100 minutes and some 89 free kicks could not separate the sides when they met for the replay and despite the fact that the football was error strewn, the pathos of the duel gripped the country.

There was a sense of inevitability when the second replay roared its way to extra time, with Gerry McEntee coming in as a second-half substitute to revive an ailing Meath drive.

By then, both teams had succeeded in reawakening the possibilities of the sport in the popular imagination, enlivening it with a splash of steely romance which had been badly lacking for most of the 1980s.

In the last 50 seconds of the fourth game, Kevin Foley nailed a goal to level the game at 2-9 to 0-15 and then, from the kick out, David Beggy curled the winning score.

Some 240,000 souls attended some part of the epic.

That unforgettable first-round tie cast Meath in a new light and, even though the emergence of Down was fresh, the Leinster side probably had more neutrals than usual rooting for them as they journeyed on in the championship.

Meath's next great assault on the public consciousness was in 1996, when a strong and stylish Mayo side looked odds-on to end a barren spell that stretched way back to the 1950s.

Outplayed, but not out-hustled, Meath again demonstrated their stubborn willingness to keep on plugging. They trailed by five points going into the last quarter.

As ever, they squeezed the maximum productivity out of the last sixty seconds, with Colm Coyle's long punt forward dropping between all recipients and hopping almost comically over the bar. It was eerily similar to the unorthodox kick PJ Gillic had made to force the initial draw in the 1991 saga.

It was all too familiar in the replay. Mayo made most of the running, looked good for convincing stretches, but couldn't pull away. Meath, their game orchestrated by Trevor Giles, clung on and stung Mayo with a quick goal against the run of play.

The westerners launched a frantic late assault which won admirers but too few scores and as the game ebbed into its last minute, Giles robbed the ball and fed Brendan O'Reilly. The full forward, bottled up all day, angled his point and Meath won.

Last year, both Meath and Mayo emerged to compete in separate semi-finals of the All-Ireland championship. Mayo collapsed in the second half, Meath shrugged off adversity and won. Same as it ever was.