Uphill battle as Longford face major task against Meath

In the demoralising aftermath of the very disappointing defeat against Wexford in the destruction of their promotion challenge in Division 4 of the National Football League, the Longford players are now facing a major task against Meath in the opening round of the Leinster Championship at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park this Sunday, throw-in 3pm. 

 Stuck in the bottom tier of the league for another season, few can argue with the fact that Longford senior football is currently at a low ebb and the odds are stacked against them in their quest to spring a surprise against the talented young team that Colm O’Rourke is building in the traditionally strong Royal County. 

Making progress with the midlanders is proving to be a tough job for the under pressure Longford manager Paddy Christie and while his side did manage to beat a very experimental Meath outfit on the way to retaining the O’Byrne Cup back in January, things have not gone according to plan since then in the failure to make an immediate return to Division 3. 

Defeats in the first couple of fixtures against Laois and Tipperary were a hammer blow and following a lucky escape in the narrow win away to Waterford, the players showed a fair amount of resilience in recovering well to overcome London, promoted Leitrim and Carlow with those three games all at Pearse Park.

What happened in the first half collapse at Wexford Chadwicks Park is best forgotten and things will hopefully improve in the Leinster Championship showdown in the belief that Meath are also going through a rather difficult patch during their transition period. 

Apart from the vastly experienced defender Donal Keogan, youth is certainly getting its fling in the Colm O’Rourke rising with several bright new stars gradually breaking through to the senior side who just did enough to avoid relegation in the very competitive NFL Division 2. 

Meath ended up in fifth position in the table on six points with narrow wins over Louth and relegated Kildare, along with draws against Fermanagh and Cavan, and lost to Cork and the promoted counties Armagh and Donegal.

Having said that, the Royals were already guaranteed a place in the group stage of the 2024 All-Ireland Championship following their Tailteann Cup triumph last year when they got the better of a fancied Down team in the final at Croke Park. 

While the pressure was eased on Meath in the league as a result of winning the second tier competition, their current form is far from fearful and they will not be taking anything for granted against Longford despite operating a couple of divisions above in a much higher grade. 

The Meath supporters do not need to be reminded about the shock they suffered when their team crashed out of the Leinster Championship in the 0-16 to 0-14 quarter-final defeat at Pearse Park back in 2018.

Denis Connerton plotted the unexpected downfall of Meath on that glorious occasion as Longford reached the provincial semi-final for the first time in 30 years with current players Michael Quinn, Patrick Fox, Daniel Mimnagh, Darren Gallagher, Dessie Reynolds and Paddy Collum all in action. 

When the counties clashed at the same stage of the championship in 2021, Meath gained sweet revenge in showing no mercy on their way to a landslide 4-22 to 0-12 victory at Pairc Tailteann in Navan.

Longford were badly hurt to such an extent that the manager Padraic Davis decided to quit immediately after the game, thus bringing to an end his three years in charge, and the downhill trend has continued in the meantime even though the county were most unfortunate to lose by just a point at home to Offaly in opening round of the Leinster SFC last season.

Offaly then caused a considerable upset to defeat Meath in the quarter-final but Colm O’Rourke regrouped his troops in fine fashion to take the Tailteann Cup.

A measure of the strength of the present Meath squad is that one of the rising young stars, midfielder Diarmuid Moriarty, will probably have to settle for a place among the substitutes on Sunday.

Moriarty produced a powerful performance to score 1-4 from play in this year’s O’Byrne semi-final against Longford in early January with just one of the Meath team on that bitterly cold night in Ashbourne featuring in the 2023 Tailteann Cup final.

Speedster attacker Jack O’Connor was a very influential second half substitute in that title decider at Croke Park, scoring 1-2, while the main man in a potentially lethal forward division is Matthew Costello who is set to take his place at full-forward in direct opposition to Longford’s ‘rookie’ defender Oisin O’Toole. 

Dromard man O’Toole has replaced the long term injured Andrew Farrell (cruciate) at full-back and he is joined on the casualty list by Iarla O’Sullivan and Keelin McGann.

The quick pace of McGann is a vital asset and while the Kenagh lad is likely to miss the match against Meath, he will be back for the Tailteann Cup campaign along with O’Sullivan. 

With a number of other players absent in their decision not to commit for Longford this season for different reasons and Barry O’Farrell a recent departure from the squad, the problems are mounting for Paddy Christie who could have done with the big boost of promotion in the league but that objective unfortunately failed to materialise.

Darren Gallagher appears to be hampered by a recurring injury, which was clearly the case against Wexford, but the players will be going all out to give it their best shot against Meath as we live in hope!

If Longford could reproduce the same sort of fine form they showed in scoring a six-point win over Leitrim in the league then who knows what might happen in the battle to determine who earns the daunting task of taking on the All-Ireland champions Dublin in the next round a week later.

Make no mistake about it, Meath football is on the upgrade with the emergence of a lot of promising young players and competition for places on the senior squad is extremely keen - clearly reflected in the fact that no members of the All-Ireland minor (U-17) winning team in 2021 are in the frame to feature against Longford on Sunday!