Mellett recalls the great days
November 30, 2009Connemara native Mellett, who moved to live at Derrylangan, Athboy, at the age of 10, contributed two second half points in the 1967 final as Meath defeated Cork by 1-9 to 0-9 and he was part of a hugely talented half-forward line which was completed by Tony Brennan and another Galway native, Mattie Kerrigan.
Push the clock forward to 1970 and Meath were back in the All-Ireland final again, beating Offaly in an extraordinary Leinster decider along the way, but this time Kerry defeated them by 2-19 to 0-18 on the day that mattered most. It was the first 80-minute final and losing it hurt.
But experiencing those lengthy campaigns on the way to the September showpiece at Croke Park has left Mellett with a myriad of memories and so many of the really good ones relate to the 1967 championship and the historic trip to Australia the following March.
Mellett, who has lived in Dublin since 1973, played under-age football and hurling with Athboy. He won an MHC medal, but was deprived of football success when Kilmainhamwood defeated them in the under-16 final. He went on to play minor, under-21 and junior football and hurling for the county without any success in terms of medals, before making his way onto the senior football panel.
After lining out in a number of challenge matches, he played his first 'real' game for the Meath senior team in a Players Cup match against Dublin at Erin's Isle, Finglas, in 1966 and made his National League debut against Kerry at Navan in October of that year. He had been a member of the panel which reached that year's All-Ireland final, losing to Galway after playing so well to get the better of Down at the penultimate hurdle.
"I wore the number 23 jersey for the final against Galway," he recalled.
Mellett's first championship game was in the opening round of the Leinster SFC against Louth at Croke Park on 21st May, 1967 as Meath set out on the long road to provincial and All-Ireland glory.
"It was very exciting and we won easily," he said. "Noel Curran was a star man that day. He scored 2-5. We beat Westmeath after that in Tullamore and then struggled against Offaly in the Leinster final, but beat them by two points.
"The situation with the All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo that year wasn't unlike this year. We hadn't been overly impressive in Leinster and Mayo had dethroned the Galway three in-a-row team in Connacht. We played well and beat them by 3-14 to 1-14."
Meath were back in the All-Ireland final, but what were his thoughts ahead of the big Croke Park showdown with Cork?
"I was only 22 and at that age you are just glad to be there," he added. "When you get to an All-Ireland final in your first year on the team you are asking yourself is this what it's all about? It was a bit of a dream for me. It had been a dream when I was growing up and it became a dream come true.
"We were confident going into the final. Cork had beaten Cavan in the other semi-final. You would sooner tackle Cork in your first final than Kerry. We were confident in our own ability going into the final. Peter McDermott was great. There was never only one way to do a thing with him. He was also the coach in 1966 and Meath came a long way under him.
"On the day of the All-Ireland final I felt I was where I always wanted to be. You always hope it will go well. What more could you ask for. I remember there was a shower of rain before the start and the pitch was a bit slippery. Paddy Mulvaney got our only point of the first half and Cork led by four points to one at half-time. But we opened up in the second half and scored 1-8. I got two long range points.
"It was great to win it, but I can remember when we walked out of the dressing room afterwards asking myself is this what it's all about? I had won an All-Ireland medal at 22. Some players go through a whole career without winning anything. I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time.
"They were great lads and we had a great backroom team. We were very well looked after as well. All-Irelands don't come easily and I was blessed and privileged to be there at that time."
Meath's defence of their Leinster and All-Ireland titles, which followed the trip to Australia, ended in disappointment in 1968 when they lost to Longford in their second provincial championship match at Mullingar, having earlier got the better of Westmeath at Croke Park.
"The Australian trip in 1968 was like a championship campaign in itself, like winning another All-Ireland," Mellett said. "It may have knocked the edge off us. But even if we had managed to come out of Leinster who knows what would have happened. We would have had to beat Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final and Down in the final if we got there. Down produced a great team to win it that year."
Kildare defeated Meath comfortably in the first round of the Leinster Championship at Croke Park in 1969 but, unlikely as it surely felt at that time, another big adventure was just around the corner for Mellett and a Meath team which was coached by Mick Campbell.
They defeated Carlow with plenty to spare and Kildare narrowly to reach the 1970 Leinster final which turned out to be a remarkable game which is still talked about with relish and a fair amount of astonishment to this day.
Meath trailed by 0-9 to 4-7 at half-time and by 0-14 to 4-11 with 15 minutes remaining. They looked to have little or no chance of turning things around, but they came back brilliantly to win by 2-22 to 5-12 on a day when Tony Brennan top-scored with 10 points, substitute Mickey Fay got two goals and Mellett rowed in with two valuable points.
Royal County teams produced some truly astonishing recoveries in championship football down through the years, but this one surely capped them all. Mellett was as amazed by it all as anybody else in Croke Park on the third Sunday of July in 1970.
"That Leinster final was the most remarkable game I ever played in," he recalled. "To come back the way we did was amazing. We played so well in the first 15 or 20 minutes of that game, but then they took over and ran through for goals. Goals went in like it was raining goals. It wasn't like us. On the positive side at half-time, we knew we still had 40 minutes to do it. Peter McDermott hammered that home to us. If they could do it in the first half we could do it in the second.
"Mickey Fay came on and scored two goals and I got the equalising point. Vincent Lynch was taking a '50' and was very quick to get a low ball into me. I remember that it seemed to take an age to go over the crossbar. We went three points ahead, but Willie Bryan flicked a goal for Offaly to level it up. Then Tony Brennan got the winning point. It was remarkable."
That set up an All-Ireland semi-final date with Galway which Meath won by 0-15 to 0-11.
"Playing against my native county in the semi-final was no different to playing any other county," Mellett said. "Meath was my county. I had grown up there. Once you put on the green and gold jersey it doesn't matter who you are playing. We beat Galway by an easy four points."
Unfortunately, that was as good as it got and Kerry ended Meath's dream of another All-Ireland title when winning the 80-minute final by 2-19 to 0-18.
"It was a huge disappointment to lose the final to Kerry," Mellett added. "I didn't have the best of games that day. We were in it for a long way. DJ Crowley got a goal for Kerry just as he was about to be taken off. We were only three point behind before that, but we ended up losing by seven. It was a massive disappointment and not playing well added to that sense of disappointment."
Mellett, who is a man with a love of traditional music and who likes to "play a bit on the box", played his last game for Meath in 1972 and an injury sustained while playing in a club match the following year put an end to his hopes of prolonging his inter-county career. By that stage he was still only 28.
"I suffered a bad knee injury in a club game in 1973 and that knocked me out for a year," he added. "It's very hard to get back after something like that. It was more difficult then because you were in plaster for a lengthy spell."
Another huge highlight of Mellett's playing career, and something he still speaks about in glowing terms over four decades later, was the wonderfully successful trip to Australia in 1968. It was a massive undertaking, but certainly well worth all the meticulous planning.
"It was an incredible undertaking," he said. "Peter McDermott drove it. I have such great respect for Peter. It was the trip of a lifetime. It was a very long trip, but it was well broken up with stops in places like Rome and Singapore.
"We felt that we had to make up for what happened in Croke Park the year before when the Australians beat us. I remember one Sunday newspaper asking 'is your trip really necessary', saying that we would only be beaten again. That really drove us on."
The trip of a lifetime it most certainly was for all concerned, but it was also hugely successful from a competitive point of view as Meath did their county, their country and the GAA proud.
"In our first game in Perth we won well and it was then on to Melbourne for the first of the big ones," Mellett added. "We won there and then went to Sydney where we spent three or four days. We played a Sydney selection and won well again.
"It was then on to Adelaide where we had a tough encounter with a local team. We won that and our last game was in the Carlton Ground in Melbourne against Victoria. The weather was red hot, 98 degrees in the shade.
"We fell six or seven points behind, but we came back well to beat them. The heat was savage and the ground was rock hard. That morning four of us had to go to the physiotherapist with injuries. I had got injured in Adelaide and there wasn't much time to recover."
That Australian trip, which took in a massive array of destinations and so much success on the playing field along the way, was a journey ahead of its time and a magnificent feat of organisation. And it's clear from talking to Mellett that he enjoyed it all as much as anybody else.
"The whole trip was a huge success and a great experience," he enthused. To mark the trip he later penned a song called 'The Men From Meath'.
When his inter-county playing career came to an end Mellett continued to line out at club level and played until the mid-1980s when he was in his early 40s. Among the highlights of his lengthy club career were the annexation of JFC (with Martinstown) and IFC (with Martinstown-Athboy) medals a decade apart in 1969 and 1979.
"I was on the Martinstown team that won the junior title in 1969," he recalled. "We beat Star of the Sea in the 'A' final and then beat Kilcloon in the overall final."
That success came two years after he had experienced All-Ireland success with Meath and a year before he was part of the team which suffered the agony of a final defeat against Kerry.
By 1979 Martinstown-Athboy were in pursuit of the Meath intermediate title, but it proved to be a difficult and frustrating year for Mellett because of persistent problems with that dread of all sports people - injury.
"I suffered two breaks that year," he said. "I came back for the intermediate final against Wolfe Tones and came on with 10 minutes to go. Eddie Priest scored the winning point. We spent a good few years playing at senior level after that."
Mellett was also a member of the Martinstown team that tasted hurling success in 1967 by winning the junior championship.
Over four decades after experiencing the thrill of winning an All-Ireland medal when he was in his early 20s in 1967 and the never to be forgotten trip Down Under six months later, Mick Mellett still speaks about the whole great adventure that was his Gaelic games playing career with passion and enthusiasm.
You sense that he feels so privileged to have experienced it all and considers himself fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time. Tweet
