Kieran Donaghy was in the middle of a robust defence of Armagh’s tactics during a recent media interview when he made a curious throwaway remark about Meath.
The thrust of the Armagh coach’s argument was that an awful lot of inter-county teams have adopted the exact same tactics. Swap the jerseys around and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference at times.
“I think teams are all playing in pretty much the same way now, bar maybe Meath,” claimed Donaghy who noted the Royal County’s new “expansive and open game” under Colm O’Rourke.
The really interesting bit, which Donaghy left out, is that O’Rourke has ushered in this new era of flair football while simultaneously blooding a troupe of inexperienced, greenhorn players.
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In just five games, starting with the Leinster quarter-final defeat to Offaly in late April, O’Rourke has handed Championship debuts to a dozen different players.
Some supporters may have felt that Tailteann Cup football was beneath the once mighty Royals but, in truth, it’s the only competition where O’Rourke could have presided over four wins in a row while performing the sporting equivalent of open-heart surgery.
Goalkeeper Seán Brennan, defenders Harry O’Higgins, Michael Flood, Adam O’Neill, Seán Coffey and John O’Regan, midfielder Conor Gray and attackers Diarmuid Moriarty, Aaron Lynch, Eoghan Frayne, Ciarán Caulfield and Keith Curtis are the newcomers to Championship football. If Ben Wyer and Dunboyne’s Michael Murphy – unused subs during last weekend’s win over Wexford – feature against Antrim in this Sunday’s semi-final at Croke Park then the figure will rise to 14.
As O’Rourke has noted, “most teams would take five years to introduce that many new players”.
The great irony, of course, with Antrim in mind this weekend, is that O’Rourke has taken the script left for him by former manager and current Saffrons boss Andy McEntee, torn it into pieces and tossed it on the breeze.
“It’s risk-free football with us,” said O’Rourke of the new approach. “When you’re building a team you can’t be too hard on them. You must encourage them and also realise that while today might be a brilliant day, the next day a thousand things might go wrong for them. But we feel that we’re on the right path.
“There’s plenty of fun in training and it’s a very relaxed atmosphere and it’s very enjoyable. I always say to fellas that the reason you play football is for enjoyment and to have fun and to relax, make mistakes and do silly things and go back at it again.”
Meath’s first goal against Wexford last weekend, scored by newcomer Lynch, amounted to a neat summary of what O’Rourke has been demanding from his team.
A ball delivered quickly to midfield was then kicked long by Jack Flynn into the left corner forward area where Lynch was waiting. In a straight head-to-head with his man, the Trim talent wriggled away and slid a low shot to the net.
It was a throwback to O’Rourke’s own playing days but also to a more recent time, the opening round of the National League when Meath beat Cork with a similar long-ball strategy. They took care of Clare in round two also before going six games without a win and eventually dropping down to the Tailteann Cup.
“Earlier in the league we had worked well on the long ball,” said O’Rourke. “By the time the league finished, we were back to a short-passing team. We weren’t kicking very much at all.”
Beating Tipperary and Waterford raised morale and signalled a return to the blueprint but it wasn’t until Meath overcame Down in their final group game that O’Rourke felt a corner had been turned. On the back of that result, they hammered Wexford last Saturday and will pitch up at Croke Park feeling their fast and expansive game is tailor-made for the wide open field.
“I always think good players play well in Croke Park,” said O’Rourke. “People say, ‘Ah, they might be spooked by the occasion or by their first game there’. But that’s the place everyone wants to play, that’s where you play your best. That’s where we want to be from now on, playing in Croke Park before bigger crowds.”
O’Rourke told his players in the dressingroom after the Wexford win that he admires their steely determination. For all the fun at training, he has also noticed a ruthless streak.
“You can see that when they go to do something and they switch on, they really do switch on and try to improve themselves,” said the two-time All-Ireland winner. “And they’ve set high standards for themselves, it’s not me setting those, they are setting their own standards.”
