Gaelic Games

Dublin hold no fears for Meath young guns says Andy Tormey

Royal County aiming to lay down a marker for the new season in O’Byrne Cup clash

Meath’s Andy Tormey: “If we could get one over them this early in the year, it would be good then if we do end up meeting in the Leinster final again.” Photo: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Meath’s Andy Tormey: “If we could get one over them this early in the year, it would be good then if we do end up meeting in the Leinster final again.” Photo: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Paul Keane
Fri Jan 16 2015 - 01:00

Despite their poor recent record against Dublin in Leinster finals, if Meath's players are intimidated by the prospect of meeting their great rivals again this weekend it's not apparent. In fact, wing-forward Andy Tormey is confident

the Royal County’s young squad – the average age is 23 – are capable of laying down an early season marker.

Tormey says there's no fear factor about facing Jim Gavin's Dublin, albeit an experimental version, in the O'Byrne Cup semi-final.

“No, definitely not,” said Tormey. “We saw last year that Donegal beat them, we even had our chances as well. Obviously they beat us by a good bit in the end but we’re going to look forward to hopefully beating them this weekend, that’s the plan anyway.

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“It would be great to get on top of them now and drive on for the rest of the year. If we could get one over them this early in the year, it would be good then if we do end up meeting in the Leinster final again.

“But obviously that’s a long way away. We want to concentrate on the league. But all going well we will meet them in the Leinster final and if we have one up on them this weekend it would be something stored away . . . .”

Meath manager Mick O'Dowd has always talked about building for the future. It's apparent in the composition of his side which contains a host of U-21 players and graduates from the successful 2012 minor team.

Meath could have key forwards Mickey Newman and Stephen Bray available for the tie. But cruciate victims Conor Gillespie and Eamonn Wallace are ruled out as are captain Kevin Reilly, James McEntee (foot) and Shane O’Rourke (hip). Newcomers Conor McGill, Shane Melia and Ciarán McConnell could feature with U-21 midfield duo Harry Rooney and Adam Flanagan.