Meath dig deep to see off feisty neighbours

The actual source may remain a mystery, but time and time again Meath footballers provide evidence that their indomitable spirit knows no bounds. Yesterday, in the familiar theatre of Croke Park, they dug as deep as they have ever done in the name of survival and, if Tommy Dowd took many of the personal plaudits, it was Meath's general propensity to work together that enabled them to secure a one-point victory margin over Louth in a rollicking Bank of Ireland Leinster senior football championship semi-final.

This was a game that finally enabled football to buck the trend and rid itself of its dour image. The pace resembled that of the mad dash to the first corner in an Olympic 1,500 metres race, and it never slackened.

Amidst such frenetic activity, Meath and Louth managed to produce 23 scores from play (out of a total of 27) and, despite the intensity of it all, there were just 37 frees and two bookings, which in modern-day Gaelic football is a very acceptable strike-rate.

It all ended in more heartache for Louth. It's 23 years since they last managed to beat their neighbours in the championship and for a good portion of yesterday's match it appeared as if they had the required ingredients to bridge that gap. However, Meath's knack of producing players out of the hat - Hank Traynor and Stephen Dillon came on at half-time yesterday - to serve the cause and the ability of someone on any given day to assume the role of hero makes them a rare breed indeed.

Yesterday, not for the first time, the hero was Dowd. He scored the five second-half points that enabled Meath to, firstly, claw their way back into the game and, ultimately, to overtake Louth, who had set the pace from the 18th second of the match when Gerry Curran kicked the opening point.

Louth showed no inferiority complex. Far from it, in fact, as they played with a confidence and panache that had Meath's defenders working overtime to close them down. In hindsight, Louth probably didn't make as much from the opening 20 minutes as they should have done: they kicked four wides in the first three minutes of the game; and Cathal O'Hanlon's left-footed piledriver in the seventh minute had Meath goalkeeper Conor Martin grasping at air until the shot rebounded back off the angle of upright and crossbar.

Still, Stefan White's superbly-executed goal in the 20th minute gave Louth a 1-3 to 0-2 lead that was entirely justified. Arron Hoey's long ball out of defence was won by White and, when Mark O'Reilly and Darren Fay were both sucked out to mark O'Hanlon, the slimmed-down attacker zoomed in on Martin's goal and fired to the back of the net. By half-time, Louth trotted into the dressing room under the New Stand with a cushion of 1-5 to 0-4; and Meath's worries weren't only caused by the scoreline but were also due to injuries sustained by Fay (concussion) and McGuinness (rib injury) which forced team surgery for the resumption, with Traynor and Dillon joining the fray.

If any team is going to win a close match, then they also need a break or two along the way - and Meath's probably came in the 45th minute, a time which actually concluded one of their purple patches. Graham Geraghty's shot was extravagantly signalled wide by an umpire, but referee Brian White over-ruled his official and awarded the point which brought Meath level for the first time since the 18th minute.

That Geraghty point was Meath's fifth in a row, a sequence that had been started some eight minutes earlier by Raymond Magee and then included three successive efforts from Dowd. Ironically, Dowd had been effectively shackled by his marker Breen Phillips for much of the match, but the Louth player received an injury early in the second-half, struggled through that particular stage of the game, and was eventually substituted. But Dowd had discovered his top form and subsequent markers, substitute Declan O'Sullivan and Nicky Malone (who'd had an excellent game), failed to quell his point-sniffing instincts.

Louth refused to capitulate, though. After that disputed Geraghty point, it was pretty much nip and tuck for the remaining 10 minutes and Louth actually regained the lead in the 52nd minute when Stephen Melia picked out Alan Rooney who pointed from an acute angle to put Louth 1-8 to 0-10 in front. Then Geraghty levelled with his third point from play and, fittingly, Dowd's 56th minute score (his fifth of the day) put Meath in front for the first time.

Once in that position, Meath are hard to shift. Barry Callaghan was an imposing figure in defence and Geraghty turned in a tour de force which saw him as likely to pop up in defence as in attack.