Dowd reflects on selectors role
November 30, 2007
In recent years the name of Kevin Dowd has become synonymous with Meath hurling but his contribution to the green and gold jersey was slightly altered in 2007 as the Dunderry clubman opted to trade in his playing capacity for a place on John Andrews' selection committee.
The decision was met with a certain amount of surprise around the county as Dowd was regarded as one of the more established county players but his vibrant personality and rapport with the panel proved the perfect formula in getting the enjoyment back into Meath hurling, which Dowd believes was the main aim at the beginning of the year.
"The main reason why I decided to get involved in the running of the team was to try and generate a bit of enjoyment back into it. The last couple of years before this one had been a bit of a disaster for Meath hurling," Dowd said.
"Ever since Michael Duignan left as manager there has been very little interest in the county hurling side so our aim at the beginning of the year was to get lads back enjoying it and to put Meath hurling back on the map and hopefully we did that.
"It was the first year in a while that everybody put their shoulders to the wheel and John (Andrews) deserves great credit for the way in which he managed to get the team back to where it should be, competing for honours," he added.
When the management team was put in place at the beginning of the year, followers of the small ball code in the county would have snapped at the chance of reaching the last four of the Christy Ring Cup if offered, but such was the improvement shown as the campaign progressed that a semi-final exit was met with widespread disappointment.
Reflecting back on that tie with Kildare, Dowd feels that his side did not perform to the level that they are capable of and admitted that defeat was all the more harder to take considering the fact that they had easily accounted for the Lilywhites in a challenge match a couple of months earlier, despite not fielding their strongest team.
"While many will regard the year as a whole as a success, we were bitterly disappointed with the way we made our exit from the Christy Ring Cup against Kildare as we never raised a gallop at all and played very poorly.
"In hindsight I think a couple of the lads were already thinking of playing a final in Croke Park and they were a bit complacent going into the Kildare game. But Kildare had been in a couple of semi-final's before and they had plenty of experience and deserved to win on the day.
"The most disappointing aspect of it was that we had played them in a challenge match a couple of weeks earlier and beaten them with half a team and they had the same team out that day as the on that lined out at Tullamore," Dowd stated.
Meath had impressed many astute judges on the road to the knockout stages of the competition with defeats of Mayo, Kerry and Down combined with a share of the spoils with eventual winners Westmeath, seeing the Royals jump to the head of the market for outright honours before Kildare brought a abrupt halt to their winning run.
However there were plenty of positives to take from the campaign and Dowd believes that the way Meath were able to compete with sides like Westmeath and travel to places like Down and come away with the spoils shows that they have made giant strides.
"We proved against Westmeath that we are capable of competing with the top sides and the fact that they won it out and we were able to draw with them shows that we are not that far off the pace and with a little bit of improvement we are not far off a breakthrough.
"We went up to Down and managed to beat them, whereas in other years we would have went to places like that and got beat so it is a good sign that we are able to travel to the better counties and get results," he remarked.
Dowd was full of praise for all the players that put such a big effort into trying to bring some silverware back to the Royal County and gave special mention to Mickey Foley, who went from being surplus to requirements to establishing himself as one of the biggest assets to the side by the end of the campaign.
"You could not ask for a nicer bunch of lads to work with. It was incredible the amount of improvement throughout the year that some players showed. The prime example was Mickey Foley from Gaeil Colmcille. At the start of the year most lads would have said that he would be nowhere near the team but he kept at it and kept working hard and he was arguably the best player we had in the entire campaign."
So what about his own contribution? While stressing that he thoroughly enjoyed his spell outside the white lines, Dowd admitted that he was keen to return to fight for his place and stated that he will not be part of the management team for the forthcoming campaign.
"It was a completely different experience standing on the line rather than playing inside it and at times it was torture as I was mad to get out there and play. But it was great to work with John (Andrews) and Paul (Donnelly) and I learned an awful lot from them.
"Next year I am going to concentrate on trying to get my place on the team and I will not be forwarding myself as a selector. Hopefully I will be able to get back in the thick of things and push for a place," Dowd concluded.
Whatever role Dowd does play with the side in 2008, he is sure be one of the main contributors to Meath's bid to try annex Christy Ring Cup honours.
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