Meath can close gap on Dublin despite funding issue, says Giles

Money is not necessarily the reason for Dublin’s apparent football supremacy, nor indeed is its playing population. According to Meath’s two-time All-Ireland winner Trevor Giles, it’s about having the right people in the right place at the right time

Although he has stepped down from the Meath management team after serving four years as a selector, Giles remains confident the county can close the gap on Dublin. It may not be this year, but Giles believes Meath are going the right way about it.

“If you look around Meath, pretty much all the clubs have great facilities. Your main pitch, a training pitch, maybe an all-weather training area. You have dressing rooms for men, women, all terrific,” he said.

“But it’s probably only happening a little bit now that clubs are starting to think about foundation courses, level 1, level 2, so it’s probably going to take a bit of time before the clubs get enough coaches qualified to the right level to start producing the better quality player.

Development funding

“The more coaches you have the better. We need to get the culture a little bit away from facilities, to how well qualified the coaches are in the clubs, at underage and adult level. More of those courses are going on at the moment and they are being filled with decent numbers, but that’s going to take a few years to really see that.”

In terms of games development funding, however, the gap is unequivocal. Dublin raised plenty of eyebrows earlier this month when it emerged they were awarded €1.34 million towards their games development, according to figures released in the GAA 2015 financial report. This figure roughly exceeds the collective amount received by the 31 other competing counties.

Senior team success

Meath received just under €46,000 towards their games development; Kildare, likewise, about €43,000. Several counties argued that this allocation of funding only serves to extend the gap between the All-Ireland champions and the rest.

Although for Giles, speaking in his role as EirGrid under-21 football ambassador, that shouldn’t affect the success of the current Meath senior team. When he was playing under Seán Boylan, for example, money was never an issue.

“When you look back, Meath in the 1980s, and obviously Seán Boylan was the biggest factor there, but you had a great sponsor with Kepak. To think 30 years ago the team had access to a helicopter whenever they wanted, in the 1980s,” he said.

“It was there to bring a player to training or a game or wherever. Those things make a difference, they definitely do. It is an amateur game but there are things that can help your team.

“But you have to have the players, number one. And Meath did at the time, they had a number of really top players. There is a gap between a few of those top senior teams now and the rest of the country.

“Last year the Meath minor team was the first minor team that had three years of strength and conditioning, so there was good hopes for that team last year that they would be competing on a level playing field with all the other teams in the country, but it just came unstuck against Longford in the semi-final.

“That’s kind of where we are at the moment: trying to get up on to a level playing field with everyone else. It started with last year’s minors.”

Football supremacy

What is more certain, he said, was that Dublin’s apparent football supremacy wouldn’t last forever: “No doubt things will change. You look at the Leinster rugby team: a few years ago everybody was saying they were brilliant, their academies were brilliant and attendances were great. But once you lose a couple of players, the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, they are hard to replace. So I think things will change a bit.”

One test of that will come next month, when Meath face Dublin in the first round of the Leinster under-21 championship. Giles won All-Ireland titles at both minor and under-21 grade and said Meath needed to start winning there again to improve their prospects at senior level.

“It was important, big time. It’s another stepping stone. And you get to see who might be the leaders on the team, in a few years’ time. It gives you a chance to prove yourself,” he said. “And getting confidence is a huge part as well. I played two years minor with Meath. We played in two All-Ireland finals. We won one, and lost one. That gives you confidence in your ability.”