Mick O'Dowd declared himself "delighted" with Meath's second half performance against Dublin.

Trailing by nine points after Eoghan O'Gara netted in the 42nd minute, the Royals staged a stirring comeback which saw them regain parity, only for Dublin to win it with two points in injury-time.

After losing last year's Leinster final to the Dubs by 16 points, O'Dowd had reason to be pleased.

"We didn't mention the Leinster final in the build-up," the Meath manager revealed.

"I assumed it was in each player, certainly the ones that played in the Leinster final. You only kind of deal with that when you're in a Leinster final again and you hope to drive on.

"The character in our squad is really good. There's inexperience in our squad and you can't inject that.

"You have to put the platform around the young players and give them the opportunity. And you see the two lads in the middle of the field, they're both U21s and they were outstanding.

"I was delighted with the second half. We really just opened back the shoulders and went at it. There was some heroic defending going on. I wasn't really happy with our forward play in the first half, but it did improve certainly in the second half.

"We've a bit of work to do in advance of the league, but we started a team there that had seven fellas not involved in last year's championship squad, so we're building a base of players that can compete at that level."

Tweet

Most Read Stories