Series that reclaimed summer for GAA

Meath v Dublin 1991: Seán Moranlooks back on the saga that dominated the sporting landscape for over a month in 1991

In a way it's hard to believe that over 15 years have elapsed since Dublin and Meath met four times in the space of a month in the Leinster Championship, but viewed through the prism of all that's happened since in football and the GAA in general, the summer of 1991 looks like a different world.

Looking back at the old Croke Park, the space is familiar but the surroundings strange-looking now we're used to the architectural sweep of the new ground. The football played is far removed from the jealously protected possession and measured deliveries of the modern game: players battled for ball in their vicinity and, when in space, invariably launched it long into the forwards.

Paddy Downey of this newspaper found himself tethered to Croke Park on four weekends as his beloved Munster hurling championship progressed in his absence. He compared his fate to that of Tony Last, the character in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust who ends up in the jungle being forced to read aloud and in perpetuity the works of Charles Dickens to Mr Todd, a mad recluse who had rescued him after a trip down the Amazon had gone horribly wrong.

There were, nonetheless, many reasons why the Dublin-Meath series was so fascinating both at the time and in retrospect. Nineteen-ninety-one was a time of change. A year previously the Italia '90 World Cup had had a major impact on the Irish public and there was a certain amount of anxiety about the likely consequences for the GAA.

Michael Delaney, secretary of the Leinster Council and one of the contributors to the DVD The Royal Battle - Meath v Dublin 1991, outlines that the provincial championship took a financial hit in 1990 because of the World Cup. Dublin-Meath arrived at a time when the continued drawing power of Gaelic games wasn't as confidently assumed as it would be now in an era of burgeoning championship schedules and attendances. It showed indigenous sport could monopolise public attention just as had happened 12 months previously with the soccer team.

Not everyone holds to the view the matches were crucial in reclaiming the summer for the GAA. Liam Hayes, Meath's captain in 1991, believes Gaelic games were too established in society to ever be eclipsed, but it is safe to say the series turned out to be a far more compelling narrative than anyone would have hoped.

This was the first year of the open draw in Leinster, where Dublin and Meath had contested the previous five finals. Throwing the counties together in a first round was felt at the time to be a terrible own goal by the GAA, throwing away the one guaranteed box-office fixture in early June and losing thousands of pounds in the process.

By the end of the dramatic third replay, on July 6th, the first big match televised on a Saturday afternoon, the teams had attracted nearly 250,000 spectators, dominated the sporting landscape for over a month and filled the Leinster Council's coffers.

On the field this was a huge rivalry. In those pre-qualifier days teams lost and didn't play championship again for a year. But whoever won would be confident of winning the All-Ireland - remember 15 years ago the Sam Maguire had spent nearly a quarter of a century dividing its time exclusively between Munster and Leinster.

This was supposed to be the season Dublin reasserted themselves over Meath. After the serial indignities of the previous five years the Dubs had new management, a fresh swagger and the scent of blood. Under Paddy Cullen they had won the National League and were eying up their declining neighbours.

But the story of the four matches was to be one of Dublin's draining self-confidence. Vinny Murphy, the buccaneering full forward of the league, reckoned that a combination of the selectors' lack of faith (they chose not to start him on Mick Lyons in the first match) and his own evaporating confidence left him suffering from depression before the series ended. Dublin's selections became erratic as they searched for the right combination, and every time they failed to beat Meath, the conviction they were capable of doing so suffered further.

It was the last stand of Meath's great 1980s team and by the time Seán Boylan took the county to another All-Ireland only three starting players remained.

One striking aspect of the drawn match and three replays is that Dublin were comfortably positioned to win all of them apart from the second. But something in the collective psyche prevented them from closing out the matches. Meath sensed that and never felt the tug of hopelessness. All of that was reflected in the fourth and final match on a blazing July day when Dublin appeared to be in the process of settling the argument. Captain Tom Carr's injury and Keith Barr's missed penalty were all accorded significance in the aftermath, but Kevin Foley's goal for Meath as the final seconds ticked away is the great emblematic moment of the four matches.

Victory was a high point for that great Meath team - Boylan describes it as his greatest football memory - but for Dublin the wound was deep. Cullen believed the defeat left a scar that undermined the team. Ultimately that never fully healed and when the All-Ireland was captured four years later management had changed and half of the 1991 team had gone.

Seán Moran was consultant and interviewer for The Royal Battle - Meath v Dublin 1991. The DVD set, produced by Sideline and including the fourth match in full, is now on sale in shops or www.dvdsales.ie at EUR24.99.