For Mickey Burke and his Meath team-mates, the post mortem into what went wrong against Kildare has been put to bed and now their focus is squarely on this Saturday's All-Ireland SFC qualifier against Sligo in Pairc Tailteann (6pm).

It's safe to assume that there has been a lot of soul searching going on inside the Royal County dressing room ever since last Saturday's week's 0-13 to 2-16 Leinster SFC semi-final defeat to the Lilywhites in Tullamore and it was a particularly gut-wrenching defeat for the corner-back given his Longwood home's close proximity to the Meath/Kildare border.

"We were a bit down there for a while obviously but I think the two week break has helped," he revealed at a media event ahead of this weekend's clash with the Yeats County.

"I'd have been a bit worried to be honest if it was the six days turnaround. That has given us the chance to look at the game, do a couple of hard training sessions, talk about the game and move on to Sligo now.

"We did our video sessions and had a good chat about it. There's no point sugar coating it, it was disappointing. It was disappointing on the day especially when I'm right beside them as well. That makes it a bit harder. It was tough but we're focusing on Sligo now and trying to move on."

Has Mickey and his team-mates been able to put their finger on what went wrong against the Lilywhites?

"We just got punished in the Kildare game. There was a lot of errors. They had 1-10 in the first-half, seven of those scores came from our turnovers, kicking the ball away and getting turned over in contact. They came down the field and scored.

"You can't be doing that but at least we have a second bite at the cherry now. We just have to go again."

The back-door series hasn't been a happy hunting ground for Meath in recent years. You have to go back to 2011 for their last qualifier win (against Galway) while it will be their first qualifier game in Pairc Tailteann since that year's exit at the hands of Kildare.

"It's our first game at home since 2011 against Kildare," the 31-year-old pointed out. "That's not going to win us the game or anything but it's nice to be playing in Navan in front of a home crowd.

"For the last few years it's just been three games all summer, two games in Leinster and then get knocked out in the first qualifier we play. That's very hard to take. It's not good enough as a Meath footballer for the effort you are putting in. You need to be getting more than three Championship games in the summer."

He added: "We have to try and get a bit of momentum up. I remember being there in '09 and it was great, you're playing week on week, you're recovering, you're doing your training and then you have a game. It's what players want - games, games and games.

"Hopefully, we can build up a bit of momentum but we're genuinely not looking beyond Sligo first and foremost."

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