Juniors fall at first fence
November 30, 2004
Following the Meath senior's unceremonious exit from the Leinster championship at the hands of Laois, hopes of a provincial title were placed in the hands of the county's junior team but the defending All-Ireland champions also made an early exit.
Last year's success in the junior championship came at a price as manager Martin Barry and selector Dessie Rogers were suspended for 12 months following a much publicised bust up with the county board.
For this year's campaign a new management team was put in place to look after the side that consisted of no players that took part in the 2003 All-Ireland success over Galway.
The new management team consisted of Boardsmill clubman Dessie Hamilton as manager, while Jimmy Kelly, Paddy Watters, Sean Fox and Peter Fox acted as selectors.
Meath are one of the few counties that have taken the junior championship seriously down through the years and this is the main reason that they have secured five All-Ireland titles in the grade.
So many counties put little or no effort into the competition but that is not the case in the Royal county as a number of challenge matches were played in preparation for the first round of the Leinster championship.
Their preparations for the championship were disrupted when Hamilton and his selectors were made aware that two of their more promising stars Ballinlough's Peader Byrne and Ballivor sharpshooter Mairtin Doran were not eligible for the junior championship as they had not been regraded by their clubs.
Kildare were the opponents for the opening match in the defence of their crown with the Lilywhites having home advantage for the tie played on Wednesday, June 24th.
With a number of counties opting out of the junior championship, Meath's first match would also double as a semi final meaning they were only one match away from a Leinster final.
Following a number of trial matches and challenges the squad was whittled down to 23 players all of whom came from intermediate and junior teams.
Despite being unable to field any players who represented the county in the previous year's final, the management team were still able to call on a number of experienced players including Syddan's Stephen Dillon, Na Fianna forward Ollie Lewis and Navan O'Mahony's midfielder Mark Ward all of whom have been on the senior panel at one time or another. Also, Alan Fox, who had missed last year's final due to injury, captained the side.
The match itself was a lively contest with extra time needed to separate the sides but the wasteful scoring opportunities of the Meath defence was the major talking point of the match.
The Royal County had the majority of possession in the early stages of the match and lead by 1-2 to 0-1 after 16 minutes when left half forward David Murtagh finished a fine move involving Wayne Reilly and Stephen Corrigan to the net.
But despite all their possession Meath managed to squander chance after chance and amassed an incredible seven wides in the opening ten minutes and increased that tally to 15 by half time.
In between they did keep their noses in front as a free from Peter Curran and a point from play by Ollie Lewis cancelled out Kildare's solitary white flag in the opening 15 minutes.
The Meath forwards seemed to lose all sense of direction in front of goals and kicked wide after wide but still held a four-point advantage at half time, 1-3 to 0-2.
The Kildare defence tightened up in the second half but Meath still held a four-point advantage with ten minutes remaining, 1-6 to 1-2 with their points coming from captain Alan Fox, Mark Ward and substitute Paul Murray as they stretched their lead with the game entered its last few minutes.
Meath looked to be heading into the final for the second year running, but Kildare came storming back with five unanswered points and lead by a solitary score as the game entered injury time.
Fox then played a captain's role by sending the game into extra time after he fisted the ball over the bar much to the relief of the Meath players and supporters.
During the first period of the additional time, the sides scored two points apiece with the Meath scores coming from Murtagh and Reilly but this was to be their last scores as Kildare added two more in the final ten minutes to book their place in the decider.
Meath may have savoured their last success in this grade as the competition looks destined to be scraped in the near future with only five teams from Leinster taking part.
The Meath team that lost narrowly to Kildare was: D O'Brien, B O'Reilly, J Melia, D Moran, N McLoughlin, S Dillon, A Rennicks; M Ward (0-1), S Corrigan (0-1), P Curran (0-1), W Reilly (0-2), D Murtagh (1-1); A Fox (0-2), O Lewis (0-1), J.L McGee. Subs: P Murray for Lewis, R Sheridan for O'Brien, E Carroll for Murray, T Loughran for McGee.
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