Stalemate in the heat and nobody too concerned. Sean Boylan is back in this dressing-room for the first time since last September. Looking younger as the years pass.

"In the end, we had to be satisfied with small mercies. It was a pressure kick on Trevor and fair play to him, he put it away. I felt Derry were in control of the game even though we weren't so far behind and then when they got the goal it seemed to spark something in our lads and we came up a gear and were lucky to get a response very quickly to get back on par because Derry are very hard to break down."

Across the corridor, Eamon Coleman is explaining away that same goal in those sing-song Derry tones of his.

"The goal was not down to any particular brilliance on Ollie Murphy's part. It was Gary's mistake - he had the ball and he dropped it. That score came at a crucial point because we were five points up and probably would have gone on to win it."

Tough assessment on his son but Coleman has never been one for soft words and instead, he goes on to predict possible gloom around the corner. All with a twinkle in his eye.

"We played to about three-quarters of our potential out there today. The good points were that we battled and worked for each other, which we hadn't been doing very well recently. But look, I'd say Cavan will now start as favourites for next week. Derry is going to be a tired team.

"Cavan aren't a bad side - people are laughing but I saw them in the McKenna Cup against Tyrone and they scored 1-18. Any side that puts up a score like that is not bad, they have good forwards. So we'll have to see how it goes."

With 20 minutes remaining in the game, it was apparent that neither side was prepared to lie down and with hits becoming more ferocious with each passing play, it was inevitable that there would be a casualty in some shape or form. Ultimately, Graham Geraghty was the man singled out after what had been a trying afternoon.

"I was close to it and it was definitely a sending off offence," recalls Henry Downey. "I have no qualms about saying that. It was an elbow in the face and the cameras will pick it up. It's hard to play against 14 men, we've had that experience before but with the 15 men we probably should have went on to win it."

Across the way, Sean Boylan, who had been perched on the sideline at the time of the Geraghty incident puts his own slant on it. "I'd have to say when I saw it I didn't think it was a sending-off. I mean, I saw an incident with Trevor Giles afterwards and he got a punch straight in the face. That's what I saw. But these things happen in football and there is very little you can do about it," he says with a shrug.

And so he'll be back here in a couple of weeks, meaning that the usual Sunday cavalcades across the border will begin in earnest a little earlier this year. He is happy to have it that way.

"If we were beaten out there today, we'd have a good few questions to ask ourselves. Now, we have a chance to have a go again, perhaps without Graham but that's the way football goes and you just have to cope with those things as well."

In the Derry dressing-room, Henry Downey stoically laces his boots, looking fresh after a honeymoon spent on safari.

"Character wise, we needed to come out of that one. It would have been bad for us to have come out of a tight game and lost because we'd have gone back saying, `Meath still have it in Croke Park, they can dig in and win'. We are disappointed we didn't actually win. We felt it was stolen away from us there at the end."

He stands up and pauses for one final thought. "But then again, Meath are never dead until they actually are dead." Ne'er a truer word.