It is unnaturally dark for a mid-August evening and sheets of lightning streak ominously across the horizon. At the training ground, the spectators worriedly glance skyward while the Meath lads continue to thump points, awaiting the manager.

Sean Boylan has been detained and is standing in shorts as heavy raindrops fall around him, considering this latest episode in his epic tenure as the lifeblood and public face of Meath football.

There are queries about this effortless ability of his to replace the cracks over the years, effortlessly replacing the bit parts while the jigsaw always bears the same print. Doesn't seem to matter who plays for Meath, it's still Meath you're watching, half jealous, half admiring.

"Well, myself and Frank Foley and Eamon O'Brien, we never stop looking at matches," Boylan explains. "This is a sports mad county and there is always something going on. I mean, take Nigel Crawford. I remember after Meath had won the minor title a few years back he was playing a schools game with Coolmine against Moate.

"He was only 15 then but whatever it was about the way he handled himself that day, I just said, well, I'll keep that in the back of me mind. Then he began playing senior football with Dunboyne and things happened from there. You need a bit of luck too," he explains.

Then, he brings in another example, going back to the mid-1980s and presenting an example with such clarity of recall it might have happened last week.

"We brought Liam Harnan and Brian Stafford in for a trial game in January of 1985. They'd played in the league before Christmas but after the match we said look, you won't be playing the rest of the league, go back to your clubs and we will bring ye back in for the championship. As it happened, they were both injured that summer and we got hammered. But they were about when we won the following years and they had gotten a taste for it the previous year, which was important," he says.

It is certain that that was just one of thousands of examples Boylan might have drawn on and that while the rest of us categorise Meath's successes in terms of eras and personalities, to Sean Boylan, it's all one blanket period. He took the side back in 1982, moulded it to the way he wanted and has simply tinkered with the formula ever since.

The laughs, the great players, tears and long journeys; all peak and subside and the process starts again.

But it is still hard to believe that only eight of the players who defeated Mayo in the 1996 All-Ireland final will start against Armagh on Sunday.

"Yeah, they are young men in every way. We have lost some players, like Tommy (Dowd) most recently but others are stepping up. It's all on the day and you just have to hope that somebody will step up and make it happen on Sunday."

Boylan's eyes twinkle when he considers Armagh. "They're like men possessed," he smiles.

"A lot of teams might have been satisfied with taking Ulster, after not having won in years and years and years but these boys want more. They are a fine big team and will be very hard to beat."

And even though that's true, it is still difficult to imagine Meath losing. It just isn't their style. Boylan though, is forthright about the prospect of losing and is reluctant to see any one match as bringing that inevitable moment rushing upon him, when it's time to let go of all the years and walk away. There is no hint that this might be his last year.

"Ah no, if you say that, you shouldn't start the year, you know. Something will happen and when that happens, I'll say well, thanks or sorry or whatever. The county board might want to bring in someone and if that happens, there'll be no hassle, no problems. I have huge friendships built up and they won't die. For now though, you do your best and if that's not good enough, accept it. That's the way it is."

He admits that sometimes when nights are icy, the prospect of shouting from the sideline doesn't thrill him, but other times, he jokes, he's "glad to get out." Ultimately though, he still gets the same buzz out of it all and reckons little has changed.

"Well, maybe the discos are a bit loud for me now - and I don't get asked to go. I remember years back when I was a bit younger, I was a single then and I'd go places with the lads . . . and that had its advantages and disadvantages too but . . . no, there are no big changes."

He is anxious to get on now and in minutes will be putting his players through their paces, always using first names and that gentle tone while Fay and McDermott run weave drills and backs and forwards at speed. Before he makes his excuses though, someone asks the old intangible. What keeps him going?

"That lightning," he winks.